Loving Vincent (*****)

For all the faults audiences may find in a movie as unique as LOVING VINCENT, I don't think it makes it any less of a monumental achievement. It's a marriage of art and technical prowess. Even the film can't deny it's own brilliance - the opening credits remind us that this is an entirely oil painted film, rendered one frame at a time by over 100 artists. To see it in theaters is to fall into the mind of an artist. The colors are so vivid as they light up the screen with stunning compositions and movements. This is simply a stunning movie.

To know the craft behind it is just as incredible as watching the film, itself. The process of bringing such an ambitious project to the screen resulted in crowd-funding, experiments, and lots of dreaming. Watching the film, it's easy to see the process, but it's not easy to comprehend much beyond it. Each frame is a painting, and shot by shot, we see the artists painting over, adjusting color and form to create a fluid movement. If you wonder how they would keep 65,000 paintings in storage then look no further: no more than 10% of images you see on screen still exist, the rest lay buried under layers of paint.

The story is no less intriguing. We follow a character named Armand (the man in the yellow jacket), son of a postman who has van Gogh's last letter that was addressed to his brother. It's a year after the artist's death and the intention is to give Vincent's brother some peace. Armand makes the journey cross country to a small village outside Paris. Here we learn a startling truth: that van Gogh's brother also committed suicide. What has become of the van Gogh name, and more importantly, what might have driven these men to end their promising lives so soon?

The story follows a chapter book structure. Each individual scene seems to tell its own story, and we become familiar with the techniques used. Armand meets the innkeeper who owned the hotel Vincent lived in at the time of his death. He meets a local doctor, a fisherman, a young boy... Each tells their own account of the man they knew. In contrast to the bright Impressionistic colors of the film, flashbacks of Vincent show nearly photorealistic black and white sections of story. We see his arrival in the town, his steadfastness in painting and art, and a relentless flow of bullies, gossip, and mounting dread. Armand, a man who knew van Gogh and was the subject of some of his paintings, recalls many of these faces from other works by the master. When he meets a girl at a piano, he instinctively tells her "I recognize you."

I can imagine some people becoming bored by such a beautiful film that follows such a predictable structure. The ending concludes just about as we might expect. Whether or not Armand learned any more about Vincent prior to his death (was it even a suicide?) is beyond the point. One character sums it up quite nicely: "you want to know so much about his death, but what do you know of his life?" Quite right. Maybe this film can shed some light. What we are left with is a movie that takes your breath away with each new scene. It's a monumental achievement no matter how you look at it, and a process that I doubt many filmmakers will ever attempt again. Go to see LOVING VINCENT for it's singular vision of storytelling. Each frame of this story captures van Gogh's style and brings his art to the forefront. It's a love letter in many ways - an attempt to pay homage to such a revered man. It is quite the tribute.