It's strange for me that so many people here seem to love this film so much.
I find the technique and style very interesting - not the act of shooting live, and then painting over each frame; that's been done before (and perhaps better, in my opinion), even if here it was done by oil painters instead of animation artists and using oil on canvas, which of course meant a lot of work and is a huge achievement by itself. But I don't find the end result of all that work to be that amazing, even when seen on a cinema screen. What I liked more was the composition of the shots based on van Gogh's paintings, a bit similar to "Shirley: Visions of Reality".
That being said, I think this should have been made as a short, like it was originally intended. At a length of one and a half hours, the style of the animation is not enough for me to judge the film only based on that, and I take everything else much more into account - the plot, the acting, the strange casting choices of (generally good) actors with inopportune (and different) accents - and considered as a whole, this is a bad movie for me.
The story is a boring and unengaging neo-noir murder mystery, which in the end obsesses so much about van Gogh's death that I feel the movie missed out on the opportunity to paint a portrait of his life using his own technique and style and the acting is puzzlingly bad (even apart from the accents), mostly due to the very odd body language, as Lumen points out.
I'd recommend having a look at this film, but watching through all of it was quite a dull experience for me as the fascination with the style faded over time and the moments of recognizing scenes copying / alluding to van Gogh's paintings were not enough to make up for all the film's shortcomings.
Loving Vincent uses animation techniques developed for Waking Life and A Scanner, Darkly to bring Vincent Van Gogh's paintings to life in the most gorgeous way, using his characters and environments in a coherent detective story. It looks beautiful, but is frankly a little dull (I'm surprised I haven't seen some uncharitable soul compare it to watching paint dry), consisting mostly of talking heads as the lead character interviews various people in Vincent's life to elucidate either why he committed suicide or who might have murdered him instead. Despite considerable talent both in the animation department and in the actors involved, the work feels at a remove from its audience, not at all immediate. I do appreciate the underlying metaphor though. It's really about refusing to accept a person's suicide and trying to make sense of something lacking all sense, i.e. clinical depression, suicidal thoughts, and self-nihilism.
The animation is wonderful. But for the rest it is a really average detective/docu/film noir. The acting (even if their faces are painted over, it's still acting) is really terrible, with weird and over-the-top body language.
And why the accents?? Scottish or Irish whatever it was, or both, to represent southern France? A Polish imitating the (ugly, I know) Dutch accent? Why? Was it that hard to find French and Dutch actors? And the music was a bit too cheesy, no?
Still a feast for the eye, and compliments to all the painters working on this project!
Yes, the plot is a little meh. It plays out like an episode of Masterpiece Theater or one of Agatha Christie's lesser works. But the art is just so darn amazing it makes up for everything else. An ambitious project that doesn't quite live up to its potential but is nevertheless worthy of praise.
This is a true masterpiece, and worth watching on a big screen if possible... the heart and soul that went into this movie is overwhelming, and it's leaking from every frame. If you admire Van Gogh work you'll lose yourself in the beautiful animation, as every shot in the movie is basically taken from one of the artist's paintings... but you'll love the movie even if you're interested in art in general. It's that good... the script is absolutely secondary to the incredible animation work.
Fantastic film, unique in film history, the world's first fully oil-painted feature film! 150 artists from Poland and Greece have painted 65,000 images to be able to put together an old reputable stop motion technology film! Van Gogh started when he was 28 years old and only worked for 8 years before his mysterious death - during this time he produced 800 paintings (!). To be seen on BD, not DVD - anything else would be to blaspheme.
Really strange that this movie is in no film top list at all!?
The script was a bit disappointing (it focused on the "murder mystery" aspect more than Vincent's life), but that barely matters. The animation is so gorgeous, and so remarkably well-suited to Van Gogh's work. I could watch ten hours of it with a far more dull story.
If you like his work, I'd see it on the biggest screen possible ASAP
The effort to stress all those paintings of Vincent is great. The animation technique is nice as well. On the contrary I find the script and theme a bit weak. Nonetheless a should see...
Great animation - really amazing! I agree with the script and language issues, though. If you can, do yourself a favor and watch this film in a French Dub - I hope they made one.
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Comments 1 - 15 of 15
crazy_bitch
It's strange for me that so many people here seem to love this film so much.I find the technique and style very interesting - not the act of shooting live, and then painting over each frame; that's been done before (and perhaps better, in my opinion), even if here it was done by oil painters instead of animation artists and using oil on canvas, which of course meant a lot of work and is a huge achievement by itself. But I don't find the end result of all that work to be that amazing, even when seen on a cinema screen. What I liked more was the composition of the shots based on van Gogh's paintings, a bit similar to "Shirley: Visions of Reality".
That being said, I think this should have been made as a short, like it was originally intended. At a length of one and a half hours, the style of the animation is not enough for me to judge the film only based on that, and I take everything else much more into account - the plot, the acting, the strange casting choices of (generally good) actors with inopportune (and different) accents - and considered as a whole, this is a bad movie for me.
The story is a boring and unengaging neo-noir murder mystery, which in the end obsesses so much about van Gogh's death that I feel the movie missed out on the opportunity to paint a portrait of his life using his own technique and style and the acting is puzzlingly bad (even apart from the accents), mostly due to the very odd body language, as Lumen points out.
I'd recommend having a look at this film, but watching through all of it was quite a dull experience for me as the fascination with the style faded over time and the moments of recognizing scenes copying / alluding to van Gogh's paintings were not enough to make up for all the film's shortcomings.
Siskoid
Loving Vincent uses animation techniques developed for Waking Life and A Scanner, Darkly to bring Vincent Van Gogh's paintings to life in the most gorgeous way, using his characters and environments in a coherent detective story. It looks beautiful, but is frankly a little dull (I'm surprised I haven't seen some uncharitable soul compare it to watching paint dry), consisting mostly of talking heads as the lead character interviews various people in Vincent's life to elucidate either why he committed suicide or who might have murdered him instead. Despite considerable talent both in the animation department and in the actors involved, the work feels at a remove from its audience, not at all immediate. I do appreciate the underlying metaphor though. It's really about refusing to accept a person's suicide and trying to make sense of something lacking all sense, i.e. clinical depression, suicidal thoughts, and self-nihilism.Lumen
The animation is wonderful. But for the rest it is a really average detective/docu/film noir. The acting (even if their faces are painted over, it's still acting) is really terrible, with weird and over-the-top body language.And why the accents?? Scottish or Irish whatever it was, or both, to represent southern France? A Polish imitating the (ugly, I know) Dutch accent? Why? Was it that hard to find French and Dutch actors? And the music was a bit too cheesy, no?
Still a feast for the eye, and compliments to all the painters working on this project!
Paravail
Yes, the plot is a little meh. It plays out like an episode of Masterpiece Theater or one of Agatha Christie's lesser works. But the art is just so darn amazing it makes up for everything else. An ambitious project that doesn't quite live up to its potential but is nevertheless worthy of praise.DebsEllen
Beautiful animation!kiwidesign
This is a true masterpiece, and worth watching on a big screen if possible... the heart and soul that went into this movie is overwhelming, and it's leaking from every frame. If you admire Van Gogh work you'll lose yourself in the beautiful animation, as every shot in the movie is basically taken from one of the artist's paintings... but you'll love the movie even if you're interested in art in general. It's that good... the script is absolutely secondary to the incredible animation work.demagogo
i feel almost bad for disliking thismarcemedi
It is a great tribute to the aesthetics of vincentjlfitz
KanopyEmiam
7/10Fantastic film, unique in film history, the world's first fully oil-painted feature film! 150 artists from Poland and Greece have painted 65,000 images to be able to put together an old reputable stop motion technology film! Van Gogh started when he was 28 years old and only worked for 8 years before his mysterious death - during this time he produced 800 paintings (!). To be seen on BD, not DVD - anything else would be to blaspheme.
Really strange that this movie is in no film top list at all!?
lofly
The script was a bit disappointing (it focused on the "murder mystery" aspect more than Vincent's life), but that barely matters. The animation is so gorgeous, and so remarkably well-suited to Van Gogh's work. I could watch ten hours of it with a far more dull story.If you like his work, I'd see it on the biggest screen possible ASAP
heat_
The effort to stress all those paintings of Vincent is great. The animation technique is nice as well. On the contrary I find the script and theme a bit weak. Nonetheless a should see...jaredarm
Incredible! I don't leave reviews for many films but this film was amazing!nowhereman136
Easily the best animated movie ive seen this year so far.yogiparish
Great animation - really amazing! I agree with the script and language issues, though. If you can, do yourself a favor and watch this film in a French Dub - I hope they made one.