Kunst der Farbe is the third part to a triptych on Mondongo, an Argentinian duo of artists, and long-time friends of the filmmaker. The initiative of making their portrait, as shown in Mondongo 2, was a painful failure. Then why make a third film? Simply because failure, the impossible, are what drive Mariano Llinás’ work. In the present case, the project was a challenge thrown to Mondongo by Llinás: since you have already created a baptistery based on Johannes Itten’s The Art of Color (see Mondongo 1), let’s make a film where you and me will make a piece of art out of this seminal theoretical work. Cinema challenges painting to a duel. But the duel never occurs and Llinás ends up making his film alone, or with a few accomplices who are delighted to play along. For when a film project fails, then you can start having fun with the remainders. Putting on a show. And Kunst der Farbe is a comedy of color. Needless to say, the remainders are anything but garbage: there are shots gleaned by Agustín Mendilaharzu in the countryside and on the road in Argentina, following planes, motorcycles, cars, in search of all the colors of the world ; but also fragments from Feuillade films, whose black-and-white lends itself to all types of hues ; screentests and rehearsals of hilarious skits with Llinás as a histrionic fool wearing an eyeglass in the style of Fritz Lang; paintings that are emblematic of a history of color (Giorgione for green, Carpaccio for red, El Greco for gray, etc.); a brilliant course on color in cinema, given by the color grader on her work station, directly on Agustin’s shots. Triumph of cinema, surrender of painting. But above all else, there is an extraordinary musical score, written for the film after Itten’s book – one movement per color, all performed in the concert hall. Everything is being manufactured, devised in front of our captivated eyes, to the hectic, explosive rhythm of the music-driven editing. If cinema, as Godard said, is “the fraternity of metaphors,” then Kunst der Farbe is the very prototype of an as yet unknown means of transport. Cyril Neyrat