The production techniques and distinctive look of this picture, the first entirely oil-painted animation feature film in history, are perhaps more striking than the story it tells. Set 12 months after the death of Vincent van Gogh, the somewhat laboured narrative weaves together a group of disparate characters who all posed for the artist in a story that explores the nature of his death.
Douglas Booth, playing Armand Roulin, is our guide, though this slight, episodic tale. The son of a local postman, he is given the job of posthumously delivering a letter from Van Gogh to his brother, Theo, only to discover that Theo too has died. Declamatory dialogue is a little too on the nose, but the animation is a mercurial wonder; a snaking, vibrant vision in the golds, ochres and cornflower blues that sing of the artist’s most famous work.
There are sequences of extraordinary beauty – I particularly loved a scene that captured Vincent’s tortured countenance in reflection, shattered in the surface of the water of his washbasin. In the visual poetry of moments like this, the film comes closest to capturing the maverick genius of the artist.
