Given the subject matter of today’s film, that being the life and
death of famed painter Vincent Van Gogh, this decision definitely fits but what
is the end result? This kind of high-concept filmmaking, rather than
high-concept narrative, very easily could devolve into being just a gimmick
meant to hold up an otherwise unremarkable film; think a more high-brow version
of the latest 3D movie. Ugh… enough with this empty cynicism and let’s get into
this truly incredible film already.
The plot: Metal worker Armand (Douglas Booth) is tasked by
his father (Chris O’Dowd) to deliver a letter from a now-deceased Vincent Van
Gogh (Robert Gulaczyk) to his brother. He starts interviewing people in Vincent’s
hometown for information about where to deliver the letter and it seems that
everyone had a different idea of who Vincent was during his lifetime. As he
continues to follow the breadcrumb trail, he learns about the many facets and
tragedies of who would go on to become one of the most celebrated artists in
human history.
Booth is fantastic as our focal point character, handling
his arc of understanding very smoothly and having good chemistry with everyone
else here. O’Dowd sets a very hard precedent for the film’s emotional weight in his very
first scene, and his rapport with Booth definitely sells that the two
characters are related. Eleanor Tomlinson as a local inn proprietor brings some
warmth into what is a very maudlin film, which ends up helping out a lot in the
long run since it highlights how the film manages to handle both tones quite
well. Aidan Turner’s boatman doesn’t even have a real name to his character,
and yet he follows O’Dowd in being able to leave an incredible impression with
how he delivers his achingly poignant dialogue.
Helen McCrory is playing an
absolute cad of a housekeeper, easily the witness who has the lowest impression
of Van Gogh, but just leaving it at that would be to ignore how well she seeps
venom into every word she spits at his name. Saoirse Ronan gets a smaller but
quite crucial role and she pulls it off excellently, and Jerome Flynn as
Vincent’s doctor and Ronan’s father manages to leave the film on one hell of a
note concerning Van Gogh’s mental state. And Gulaczyk as Van Gogh himself
mostly exists in movement, not so much in dialogue, but he does admirably with
what he’s given.
As said above, this film is about as unconventional as you
can get for a modern animated film. A little over 100 oil painters worked to
make 65,000 individual frames to create this film. I bring this up both because
the film literally opens with that bit of information, but also because that
level of effort definitely pays off in the final product. For as advanced as
computer-generated animation has gotten over the last several years, there’s
still something inimitable about good old fashioned paint.
The visual style is
built around Van Gogh’s own work, with live-action actors modelled off of real
people as captured in the man’s portraits rotoscoped onto canvas. While it has
a similar feel as Richard Linklater’s work with rotoscoping, the visible
textures on the screen create something new entirely. It’s as if you could run
your hand across the projector screen and feel the brushstrokes, the indentations
where the paint hardens. Almost as if it’s breathing before our eyes, inducing
us into a trance through how the brushstrokes meld together. For a film with
this unique of a selling point, it’s only fitting that the effect it leaves on
the audience is likewise unique.
Like a lot of creative workers who died long before their
time (if there even is such a time
worth dying at), one of the main things people know about Vincent Van Gogh is
that he shot himself… and that he cut off his ear and gave it as a present.
Narratively, the film is structured like Citizen Kane in how it uses outside
perspectives to paint a picture (heh) about a larger-than-life person. However,
that ends up taking on a different form once it sinks in just how much this
film delves into Van Gogh’s psychology. When it comes to death, especially
self-inflicted, hindsight tends to make us all feel like we could have done a
lot more than we ultimately did. Anyone who has lost someone to suicide will be
familiar with phrases like “But they seemed so happy” or “I never would have
guessed that they’d do something like that” or even “How selfish of them”.
But
that’s the thing about mental illness: Unless you’re capable of literally
seeing a person’s thoughts, you probably wouldn’t
notice that something is wrong. As we hear more and more conflicting
perspectives about Vincent pile up over the course of the story, the film even
presents alternate theories about how he could have died and who was responsible.
Not that this film tries to rewrite history; this isn’t Dan
Brown we’re dealing with here. Instead, it ends up showing how most people are
rarely remembered as just one thing. For those who knew him, Vincent is
described as shy, romantic, insane, calm, eccentric, brilliant and all of those statements are true.
Because this is what happens when someone becomes so popular, so beloved, so
renowned for what they brought into the world, that they become mythologised.
Not to say that is in any way a bad thing; it’s just something that happens
when people become personally attached to art. Look at the chaos that happened
last year in terms of personal celebrity heroes leaving this plane of
existence, and the crap going on this year in terms of celebrities that we can
only wish will leave this plane of existence. We take our heroes very seriously
and, as we’re increasingly becoming aware of, they are just as flawed as the
rest of us.
Like most artists, Vincent worried that he would be seen only a
good-for-nothing. However, again like most artists, he was determined to prove
those people wrong. And so we have this film: A look at a lauded artist
described by the people who were close to him, presented in a style evocative
of his own work that highlights everything that he is, even the darker corners
of his mind, as something to be remembered and honoured. Most biographical
films aim for this ballpark, but only a handful of them can claim to hit the
nail on the head as hard as this does.
All in all, this is a truly impressive piece of art;
thankfully, not even the classical snobs can argue with that statement based
purely on its fundamentals. The acting is top-notch with quite a few
tearjerkers brought on through their performances, the production creates a
truly unique aesthetic that proves to be far more than just a simple gimmick,
and the writing highlights aspects of art and mental health in a way that does
major service to Vincent Van Gogh’s legacy, both as an artist and as a victim
of his own demons. This is one of the few times where I can say, without
hyperbole, that there is nothing quite like this in the realm of cinema. I’m
not expecting this to start a whole new enterprise for the medium, but when
it’s this damn good, it really doesn’t need to.
No comments:
Post a Comment