At Eternity’s Gate

— A visually glorious film with Willem Dafoe at his very best, working to convey the elusive essence of Van Gogh’s artistic experience. This is no easy task but director Julian Schnabel goes for it, focusing on the final two and half years of Van Gogh’s life, from meeting Gauguin for the first time just before he leaves Paris for the south of France and it’s crisp light, to his death in 1890. Carefully thought out direction and camerawork are on display at all times, often accompanied by brittle piano chords or violin music instead of dialogue. The camera sometimes seems to be jogging through fields and landscapes, moving at a heightened speed, with its vision blurring in and out of full focus. Through it all, Van Gogh paints and questions about beauty and god and art and eternity swirl around everything. That’s at least half the film and the other half punctuates the nonverbal flow, interspersing it with occasional conversations, actions, or incidents. These are less successful but do manage to harness the experience for viewers. In the end, I liked the film a lot and think it did help me to see what Van Gogh saw, something Van Gogh thought art should do. It was laboriously slow but worth it—if you don't look at the film in its entirety, you’ll get lost in the brushstrokes.

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[2018. 110 min. Directed by Julian Schnabel. Starring Willem Dafoe, Rupert Friend, and Oscar Isaac.]
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/at-eternitys-gate-2018