Who better to tell the story of a famous painter than an artist himself? At Eternity's Gate filmmaker Julian Schnabel was a well known artist and painter himself and still has exhibits and public showings of his work as well as dabbling in the world of filmmaking. His first feature back in the 90's was a portrait of the 80's street artist Jean-Michel Basquiat and he's experimented with other genres of film including biographies such as Before Night Falls and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, as well as a filming of Lou Reed's conceptual album, Berlin. Schnabel takes upon himself and his crew a bit of a different angle on how to tell about Vincent Van Gogh, and in many ways it is not a strictly by the books account, but is often more abstract than that and also helps us to get as best we can into the troubled and conflicted mind of Van Gogh, in what would be the last months of his life where he was battling with poverty as well as mental health issues that many today would diagnose as schizophrenia, or perhaps other ailments as well. The film is shot with a hand held camera in many instances which does occasionally feature some frames that seem out of focus, or like the cinematographer is in bad need of a tripod in order to keep the camera steady, but much to my surprise, I found that I really liked this look and approach and to me it is truly one of the most visually stunning films to look at this year, or in any number of years. Scenes showing Van Gogh frolicking, or sometimes wandering aimlessly throughout fields and pastures to other shots showcasing the poverty and squalor in which he is living in is all vividly captured by colours both bright and grim and the attention to details are what really enhance and get the mood and feelings across. Much of the film can be given the classification of being a very meditative film that is often peaceful and could easily fall into the filmmaking style of minimalism, but then at other times the filmmaking takes a bit of a different leap and approach and throughout the course of the film we truly do have to marvel at the way the camera techniques and the filmmakers are getting this story across to us. How much of the conversations and actual events depicted in the film actually happened, I personally are unaware of, but much still rings true from the little I do know about Van Gogh from art documentaries and even films such as Robert Altman's Vince and Theo. Willem Dafoe, who not only portrays Van Gogh in the film, but also does his own painting for the role (as does Schnabel), gives another amazing performance in what is already a legendary and much honoured career. Here in this film we see how tormented Van Gogh is from his auditory and visual hallucinations to causing himself and sometimes those around him to be in harm's way to the simple fact that he in a lot of ways is not safe nor sufficient on his own to care for himself. The miraculous thing is though that through all of this, Van Gogh painted very many works and was quite prolific within a very short period of time and while he never, or hardly ever sold a painting while he was alive, he has gone down in infamy with his works and is now considered one of the world's best painters. Dafoe's performance is one that is always fascinating to watch from his mumbling and talking to himself to his scenes of crying out and truly wandering around amidst the nature and confused bystanders around him, this is also clearly a film about his mental health issues which is often not covered, or talked about in as much details in some of the other accounts of his life. It's a very convincing performance from Dafoe from his gaunt and starved looking face to his often ratty clothes and dirty appearance. It is truly one of the best performances of this year and I hope it doesn't go unnoticed from awards voters. The film is just as artistic as it's subject himself and at times it may take a little patience for it's rather unconventional means of getting this story and vision across, but for more adventurous and patient filmgoers, you will discover that this was truly a labour of love from all involved in what is one of this year's truly great achievements and also one of the best films of the last decade or so. Amazing and worth any and all acclaim and awards it picks up and be sure to see this if it is playing anywhere nearby and certainly do not wait for rental or streaming because the theatre is the best place to see a film of this scope and quality.
Review of At Eternity's Gate
