This chapter elaborates on the role of various modern visual arts in the documentary filmmaking of Johan van der Keuken – especially, painting and photography. The cross-section of Van der Keuken’s work examined in the chapter deals with issues ranging from the enduring legacy of WW2 to the filmmaker’s experiences as a cancer sufferer, the Siege of Sarajevo to the surreal world of To Sang’s photographic studio in Amsterdam. In each case, the chapter examines how such films extend – and often, subvert – conventional documentary frames of reference in their attempts to transcend the problem of rendering a reality that is always elusive, and a representation that is always inadequate.