Review: At Eternity's Gate

Image courtesy of CBS Films.

Less concerned with its subject's life story and more focused on his philosophy and process as an artist, Julian Schnabel's "At Eternity's Gate" is the umpteenth picture to focus on tortured artist Vincent Van Gogh, but it's unique in its own right. While other films focused more on the biographical elements ("Lust for Life" and the gorgeously animated "Loving Vincent") of the artist's life or his relationship with his brother ("Vincent and Theo"), Schnabel's film feels more like an impressionistic series of episodic sketches of Van Gogh (played wonderfully by Willem Dafoe) as he explores his artistic voice.

Schnabel has long been a chronicler of artists, from Basquiat to Reinaldo Arenas, so it seems long overdue that he would tackle Van Gogh. And thankfully, his story has not been reduced to that of a tragic man who cut off his ear. The film is an intimate portrait of an artist as an older man, and when Van Gogh is not seen wandering amid visually stunning vistas or tall grass blowing in the wind, he is portrayed in close up. Schnabel's camera often gets uncomfortably close to the film's performers, so that every line on their faces is crystal clear.

There's also an interesting discussion late in the film between Van Gogh and a priest (Mads Mikkelsen) in which the artist seems to realize that he, perhaps, is not made for the world of man and conceives that his work has been produced for a later period, when people might better appreciate it.

In the film, Van Gogh is a man mostly left alone in a small town where he creates his work. His friend Paul Gauguin (Oscar Isaac) occasionally visits, but can't deal with the isolation, and brother Theo (Rupert Friend) mostly attempts to sell Vincent's work from afar. Otherwise, he is an outcast who is unloved by the townsfolk who surround him, taunted by local children and occasionally attacked.

Although the film is more interested in Van Gogh's process, his mind state is not ignored. In the film's only minor stumble, we often hear lines of dialogue repeated twice in a row - once by the actors and a second time in Vincent's head, providing a sense of his growing madness. In my opinion, Schnabel is able to better represent the artist's psychoses visually through his claustrophobic camerawork and, therefore, the repetitive dialogue doesn't provide much of a purpose.

Otherwise, "At Eternity's Gate" is an interesting take on Van Gogh. Dafoe, one of the world's most adventurous actors, gives a powerful performance as the great artist, and the film's best moments occur when he is set against a gorgeous backdrop, awed and in admiration of nature's wonders. Schnabel is a talented artist whose work is often fixated on other artists. But with "At Eternity's Gate," the director takes a unique approach by focusing less on the artist himself and more on the process and the work.