LOVING VINCENT (2017)
Directors: Dorota Kobiela, Hugh Welchman
Starring: Douglas Booth, Robert Gulaczyk, Jerome Flynn, Saoirse Ronan
Music: Clint Mansell
Summary: A young man visits Vincent van Gogh’s final hometown as he attempts to unravel the mystery behind the artist’s untimely death.
loving vincent is the world’s first fully-painted feature film - and it’s absolutely stunning. with over 6 years in the making, 125 artists hand-painted all 65000 frames of the 90 minute film, producing a 12fps animation completely in van gogh’s style and incorporating over a hundred of his artworks.
the directors’ ability to merge so many of van gogh’s works into his life story was pretty amazing - every character in the film, from our main lead to a passing soldier, was a real person who had once been painted by van gogh. many of his artworks were also partially reimagined to better fit a motion picture. in Café Terrace at Night, for example, the “camera” pans over the artwork and brings you straight into the café itself. Wheatfield with Crows, one of van gogh’s last paintings, was also a key scene in the film.
while i frankly don’t know shit about music, the beauty of the film was thoroughly amplified by Clint Mansell’s fantastic score, as well as Lianne La Havas’ hauntingly beautiful rendition of Don McLean’s Vincent during the end credits.
plot wise, the repeated retelling of events occasionally caused the film to be slightly draggy and repetitive. dialogue was also a little awkward and stilted at times.
the movie doesn’t give you all the answers - in the end, the audience must draw their own conclusions on the mystery surrounding van gogh’s death. rené’s marked absence and armand’s overly forgiving final conversation with gachet wrap up our story just a bit too conveniently, rendering a slightly unsatisfying conclusion.
many of the landscape scenes were beautifully done, but due to the limitations of the art form, rotoscoping of the actors and animated brush strokes caused some of the tighter, close-up scenes to be a tad jarring or disorientating.
on the whole, loving vincent was a beautiful film that painstakingly brought van gogh’s works to life - a solid 7.5/10.
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