A work of art! This film is the first fully hand-painted feature film using oils on canvas. It was a challenge that took 5 years to create, but so well worth seeing. This not only tells the history of the life of one of the most revered, tortured artists in the world, but also the circumstances leading up to his mysterious death.
What makes this film so remarkable are the painted visuals continuously morphing in Van Gogh’s style juxtaposed with black and white realistic style artwork as flashbacks giving background information on his life. It is an extraordinary way to reveal the details of an artists never recognized for the work he did while he was alive.
Writer/Directors Dorota Kobiela studied Van Gogh and read all his letters, some of which had drawings illustrated. She decided it had to be presented in the artist’s style and Hugh Welchman produced and wrote it with her. The Polish Institute funded the project.
The film was produced in Gdansk, Poland and they ran out of painters there to make the first feature film hand-painted by more than 100 professional artists painting in the artist’s brush stroke Impressionist style. It took nearly 67,000 frames of paintings to complete the project. And an additional 45 artists were chosen from 5,000 outside Poland to complete the film. All of the artists had to be able to emulate the artist’s brush strokes and colors. What a process!
Douglas Booth plays Armand Roulin, who has the last letter Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo and is returning it back where the artist last lived. Vincent and Theo were very close. Theo supported his brother’s art.
Chris O’Dowd is Postman Joseph Roulin, Armand’s father. Saoirse Ronan(Marguerite Gachet), John Sessions (Pere Tanguy), Helen McCrory (Louise Chevalier),Jerome Flynn (Doctor Gachet) all play either subjects in Van Gogh’s paintings or townspeople he knew.
The actors played their roles in costume on green screen. Their black outline was projected on boards and the artists placed the characters with the background being Van Gogh’s painting. They would fill in the rest of the Van Gogh’s backgrounds or rolling landscapes and shoot each version of the painting with a camera.Then add some subtle changes, shoot it again and so on so that the subject and background would be animated. The result is art that morphs and moves when edited together. Some of the trickier camera moves took up to 3 months to complete.
Van Gogh’s biographical material is told from Postman Joseph Roulin and his father Armand Roulin’s point of view. It pieces together the artist’s life which is based on Van Gogh’s actual letters to and from Theo. You get a picture of this genius’ frustration. He only wanted to inject emotion into his images and portraits. Van Gogh had his own emotional breakdowns and was committed to a mental institution. He cut off his ear and killed himself at age 37. Or did he? That’s the question raised in the film.
We now appreciate his art, but neither he nor his work was embraced at the time. The film shows how insecure and self destructive Van Gogh was. You see his clashes with artist friend Gauguin as well as just about everybody he encountered. You also see how misunderstood he was, his abusive demeanor, especially when he drank, and his even being bullied by young boys while working.
The filmmakers took their subject very seriously and have created a beautifully unique colorful creation that is enthralling. It will make you sad to know how unhappy this incredibly talented artist was. You will never look at Van Gogh’s starry, starry night the same way again. Watching this film in the theater is like immersing yourself in a very special art exhibit. It is a work of art on every level.
Good Deed Entertainment 1 hour 34 minutes PG-13
