LOVING VINCENT

I have been knowing this film for a long time since I began to develop a love for Vincent Van Gogh. The film is quite special, and should you be the one who loves arts more than insanely, never miss this one. To me, this film is totally a paint of Van Gogh’s life and death in the most realistic way as it is based on what is known about him.

To begin with, I should give a brief description about Van Gogh for those might have no clue who he is. Vincent Van Gogh is a Dutch artist, born in the 19th century. He contributed significantly to arts, which is of classic value until present as well as in the far future. He spends most of his time living in Auvers, France and died here. What people mostly know is how gorgeous his paintings are. They know about The Starry Night with stars and circles in the sky, Almond Blossoms with flowers blooming in a cyan background, etc but they hardly know about him, his life or the meaning behind the paintings. Seldom do they know that he cut his left ear just because of his insanity in arts, or he has been to the asylum to be cured as people assume he is crazy. His life, to be honest, is tingled with sorrow and hardship, contrast to his fabulous achievements in arts.

The first special feature about the film is that it is not played by humans’ role or any actors/ actresses. It is all painted by hundreds of artists, which is a special point I find intriguing. It is painted following the style of Van Gogh with oil pastels on it, reminding me of his style in arts. This is the world’s first fully painted feature film and surprisingly, it was more excellent than how I had been expecting.

Vincent Van Gogh's Self Portrait

The main character here is Armand, the son of a postman who used to be delivering Van Gogh’s letters to his brother. Armand was to deliver the last letter of Vincent to his younger brother, Theo Van Gogh after some failed attempts to hand it to him. Armand then took a train and traveled to Auvers, where a doctor called Gachet, who used to be close to Van Gogh while he was alive. However, he had to wait for the doctor to come back from work, which made him have quite a time to talk to the people in the town, who know Vincent not really well. Initially, Armand had no interest in doing this thing, not to say that he was fed up with it. But in the end, he just got to be more and more involved in the story as well as the mystery of Vincent’s life. He digged further and further, which brought him several results and stories truly about Vincent’s life. Then he began to understand more about Van Gogh, about how he lived, how he chose to survive, and what brought him to such a mysterious insanity that he killed himself. And similar to many other films’ plots, the character found the truth and spent time thinking about it over and over again.

There is one point making this film different to other films I have enjoyed before, and I believe there can hardly be any films making me having this decision. These are all the films I enjoy a lot, however, if I chose to recommend other films to people around when asked about movies, I would not recommend this one to many people. As I believe should people not know about Vincent Van Gogh, not want to know the sorrow and adversities he has been through, not love him and his arts insanely, just like me, they will definitely find it boring and a waste of time. But in case you are wanting to dig in arts, the beauty of paintings and Van Gogh, I highly recommend this one to you, as to me, it is totally a wonderful piece of arts related to Van Gogh, but not created by him.

“...and then, I have nature and art and poetry, and if that is not enough, what is enough?”