An audience of 270 people attended the worldwide premiere of the documentary On November 7th 2004, the documentary film "Love me or Leave me", directed by Jan Louter, had its premiere in the Stedelijk museum in Amsterdam. The documentary is released on DVD with English subtitles Especially for the Jan Montyn website, Viewpoint Productions provided the below synopsis. In order to film the process of making etchings, during the shooting of the documentary Jan Montyn made four etchings in commemoration of the Mekong River. Images of the etchings have been incorporated into the synopsis below, and the etchings are also on display in our Gallery. Any news on the movie will be presented here, so do visit this page regularly. The movie crew are discussing the coming shot. From left to right: Wib, Sander, Melle, Gob (from behind) and Manu

After The Moonson	Vinh Long	Nong Kai	Water Babies

"The war has never disappeared from my life. It will never leave me. It is like drunkenness: as long as you keep drinking, the hangover doesn't get a chance."

Born into a devoutly Protestant family, Jan Montyn fled his claustrophobic village in South Holland and voluntary joined the German Navy in 1944 to fight on the Eastern Front. After World War II, he enlisted with the foreign legion and fought in the Korean War. Later, he was involved in human relief missions in Vietnam and Cambodia. As an artist, Jan Montyn is well known all over the world. Thousands of prints have been acquired by private collectors and museums in France, Germany, the United States, Japan and the Netherlands. Montyn calls himself a reporter of images. It is a pointed description because, in contrast to the conceptual art of the last period where the idea is more important than the outcome and where the essence of art is studied. Montyn makes "autobiographical" art, not "art for art's sake," so to speak. Though they are transformed, his observations and experiences can be directly recognized in his work: his love for beauty of life and landscape. But he has also depicted the horrors of four wars.

Montyn's life is an almost surreal journey between war and peace, life and death, despair and happiness. For most of each year, Montyn lives in Thailand, but never longer than a few months at a time. During the daytime, he makes studies for his etchings or he prepares medicine transports to impoverished children in Cambodia. At night he looks for amusement with the local girls who work in nearby bars. When not in Thailand, he might be working in his studio in France, where he makes his etchings. It can also be that he is on a plane, travelling. Always moving. "I always travel first class, it is the only luxury I permit myself." He travels to deliver prints, to be present at openings of exhibitions around Europe, America or Japan, or simply to meet his daughter in the Netherlands. Montyn is always on the move, but never really arrives in any given place. He is a real "loner," a wanderer who only feels at home in Thailand.

"On dirt and shit grows the most beautiful flower in the world, the lotus. These are not my own words, Buddha said it. It is what Thailand, Bangkok, means to me. It is a metaphor for the social life here, a blend of rootless people from all over the world: Europeans, Hong Kong Chinese, half and whole criminals, Vietnam veterans who can no longer find their niche in America, but also the inland girls who live off prostitution. They all swarm together and everyone leaves each other alone."

One cannot begin to grasp all that Montyn has seen in his life; an effective documentary about him must have a solid structure, a golden thread. "Montyn" uses the Mekong as a leitmotif to link past and present; the journey through the present-day landscapes blends the present and the past of Southeast Asia with the art and life of Jan Montyn. The Mekong does not only reflect fragments of Montyn's own bizarre curriculum vitae - throughout the trip, his past looms up and his conscience comes alive - but also the bloody recent history of the countries in the region.

In a more abstract sense, the film is about the influence of the past on the present; about dealing with sweeping events. This is true for Montyn, but surely also for Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, countries that are still dealing with enormous traumas and political, social and economic problems, most of which result from the wars in the 1970s and 1980s. One quote from Montyn seems particularly fit to encapsulate his life and work: "With the etching needle on the hard metal, every line that is drawn is indelible. Also the wrong lines. The intractability of the metal, and that what appears is what you had thought of the other way round, the mirror image effect, that still intrigues me." What Montyn says about etching in these lines is a reflection that the film attempts to make tangible. We can never completely shake off our past; it will always continue to influence us. At the same time, "Montyn" shows that judgements about good or bad are far more complicated than they might seem upon first sight. Reality is multi-faceted - there is not just one truth - and always depends on the perspective from which you're looking