Director: Emilio Fernandez Year: 2017 Rating: 10.0 Country: Euro
What a perfectly rendered film. I felt like I had been punched in the stomach
by the end. By an animated film of sorts of an artist who died well over
100 years ago. The beauty of this film seeps into your cells, into your consciousness
one frame at a time. On the surface it might sound much too precious and
pretentious to make a film about Vincent van Gogh that is fully immersed
in his style, his landscapes and his portraits, but the aesthetics of this
film are so pure and heartfelt that it creates an emotional resonance than
comes upon you unexpectedly.
It would certainly benefit the viewer to be somewhat familiar with van Gogh’s
life story but even more so with his art. When he moved to a small village
in the south of France he painted many of those who were a part of his life
– the postman, the daughter of the inn keeper, the gendarme and so on and
they all come alive here from his portraits. Van Gogh failed at everything
in his life – his relationships, his various jobs and of course his art.
In a period of eight years with no training he painted over 800 pictures
of which only one was sold while he was alive. Over 100 of those were painted
while he resided in a mental institution – two of which were Starry Night
and Sunflowers.
It was his brother Theo who believed in his artistry, pushed him into painting
and then supported him financially over those years. He was to die not long
after Vincent, tied together in some powerful mystical bond. It was Theo’s
widow who collected many of van Gogh’s paintings and the correspondence between
the two brothers who kept the genius of van Gogh alive and in the public
eye.
A man comes to the town where van Gogh died to deliver a letter and in remembrances
of others learns about the last days of his life. Historians really have
cast doubt on the supposed suicide of Van Gogh as they have that he cut off
his ear – theorizing that perhaps Gauguin did it in a fight and Vincent did
not want to get him into trouble. Through all these flashbacks a remarkable
life emerges in a story that just feels tragically gone wrong.
