Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

“Loving Vincent” takes an enormous step forward in motion picture entertainment, and does it by essentially taking a major technological step backward. Dramatically, the picture is sound enough: The year is 1891, one year after the death by suicide of artist Vincent Van Gogh. A postman and former acquaintance of the Dutch painter is in possession of his last letter to his devoted brother Theo—previous attempts to deliver the document have failed. So the postman charges his skeptical and indifferent son with personally delivering the letter to Theo. And as the son attempts to locate Van Gogh’s brother, he begins to suspect that the artist’s death was not a suicide at all, but the result of a murder. In the process of learning the truth, the son develops an appreciation of Van Gogh, his art, and his short life. That’s the plot of the picture, which is involving enough in itself to sustain the viewer’s interest for its 91-minute running time. But the big news is that “Loving Vincent” is an animated picture—the very first in motion picture history to be composed entirely of oil paintings, a logistical feat even Disney has never attempted. Directed by the husband and wife team of Dorota Kobieta and Hugh Welchman, each of the movie’s 65,000 individual frames is rendered in oil-on-canvas, produced using Van Gogh’s technique, and painstakingly created over four years by some 115 artists selected from over 5000 applicants. To augment the impact of the picture, the filmmakers chose to use classically-trained artists rather than traditional animators. And each painting created for the picture was individually photographed in succession, to create the illusion of movement. The results are flatly astonishing. After a moment or two for the viewer to acclimate himself to the static nature of the animation—the brushstrokes on the individual paintings change from frame to frame, giving even stillness the appearance of constant movement—the overall effect is of witnessing the works of Van Gogh come miraculously to life in all their exuberance and vibrancy, to both tell a story and lead the viewer on an unforgettable journey into art history…and art itself. “Loving Vincent” accomplishes in its 91 minutes what some art history appreciation courses cannot manage over a period of weeks, months, or even years—an intimate familiarity with the creative process, and the emotional investment which is sometimes required to create the world’s great art. This movie is a real treat. Watch for it.