Return to Departure: The Biography of a Painting – Or Watching Paint Dry and Other Realisms

“This innovative feature documentary deals with both painting and documentary filmmaking as fictional processes. While the camera records, in extreme close-up, the chronological development of the super-realist painting, ‘Return to Departure,’ a multi-level asynchronous soundtrack builds up a parallel sound portrait of the (unseen) artist at work – a rambling, cheerfully free-associating monologue interspersed with radio music, children’s voice, telephone interruptions. “Gradually, we see more and more of the surface of the painting and of the working artist; beautifully shot and manipulated footage conveys the mixing of pigments, minute accumulation of figurative detail, endless compromises between vision and canvas. By transgressing the boundaries of what we normally call ‘documentary’ and ‘fictional’ cinema, Tougas presents a profound metaphorical statement of the elusive essence of the painting and filmmaking process.” – Russell Wodell “A film not only about painting, but about politics, lifestyles, love, cultural history, metaphysics, work and other elements of the soil from which art emerges… ‘Return to Departure…’ has the courage to speak to us within an aesthetic experience, offering discovery rather than descriptions. In comparison, it makes most films about art-making seem timid and superficial.” – Amnon Buchbinder, Cinema Canada “By transgressing the boundaries of what we normally call ‘documentary’ and ‘fictional’ cinema, Tougas presents a profound metaphorical statement of the elusive essence of the painting and filmmaking process.” – Russell Wodell, Pacific Cinematheque