The Incident – ​​Armando and the Myth (2018)

Directed by: Sjors Swierstra, Roelof Jan Minneboo | 70 minutes | documentary | With: Armando

Your life is shaped by what happens in your youth, according to Armando (1929-2018). His childhood is dominated by one decisive incident: during the Second World War, a boy kills a German soldier in the woods. The story is reflected in the work of the multidisciplinary artist in many forms.

Was Armando involved in the fateful event or did he devise a tragedy of mythological proportions? Filmmakers Sjors Swierstra and Roelof Jan Minneboo are looking for answers. Armando does not give in easily, he fights for the autonomy of his artistry.

A correct description. The Amersfoort teenager Herman Dirk van Doodeweerd has seen things, or has not seen them. Or he was the boy himself. Under the pseudonym Armando he writes ‘autobiographically’, but he ‘wouldn’t know’ who that boy is. The reluctance that Armando uses to give a definitive answer is intriguing. He is not a fab, but also refuses to reveal reality, ‘because it is literature’. In other words: art is superior, and for that reason we are not going to demythologize. This is how Armando has always behaved, and also very elderly – the makers film him at the end of his life in his studio in Potsdam, Armando is of the same opinion.

Mystifying is no longer necessary, and the deniers leave him cold. Did it really happen? “Apparently yes, otherwise I wouldn’t have written about it.” In between the interview sessions we see film fragments in which a boy sees the incident happen. The discussion only distracts – as it always did, from the quality of Armando’s painting, which cuts through the soul and harks back in a straight line to the Abstract Expressionists. Black souls, who seek solace in making. The sculpture and poetry (VSB Poezieprijs 2011), the columns and stories (F. Bordewijk Prize/2x Multatuli Prize) are also here to stay. What is certain is that the trees have seen it, says the creator of the expression ‘guilty landscape’. Rest in peace, Armando.