Review of the film 'At Eternity's Gate' (2018)

This is a biographic film about Vincent Van Gogh, the painter known for having the less success in life and the most success after it. The film portraits the last three years of his life, lived in different places of France: the bustling Paris, the calm but tormenting Arles, the asylum at Saint-Rémy and the tranquillity at Auvers-sur-Oise. About Van Gogh's death, the film firmly rejects the hypothesis of suicide and offers an alternative explanation.

The film does an excellent work of portraying Van Gogh's personality: his passion about how painting should be done, his loneliness and isolation, his hallucinations and mental issues. The direction of Julian Schnabel is quite sober. The pace of the film is quite slow, but nevertheless adequate for a biographic film and for giving us insight into the protagonist's psychology. The cinematography, much like in 'Before Night Falls', is matte, even dark at times. There is no effort to try to capture Nature as Van Gogh saw it – colourful, full of details. Is this a hindrance for a biographic film? Of course it is, specially if you have watched 'The Dreams of Akira Kurosawa', in which one of the parts was a marvellous cinematographic reconstruction of Nature as Van Gogh saw it – you cannot help missing it. Should the appreciation for a film be conditioned by the existence of previous films that chose different ways? Yes, definitely: Art is evolutionary. Let's just say this film has the wrong cinematography.

The film makes a questionable decision when it comes to language: the film is spoken in multiple languages, so the spectator assumes that they reflect the real languages used by the protagonists, but then it is spoken in only English and French. The Van Gogh brothers are shown talking in English between them instead of their native Dutch. The spectator is left confused – maybe is it to be assumed that English is replacing Dutch here? But then, Van Gogh and Gauguin are shown talking in English too. Wait, what? It is ridiculous to see Van Gogh speaking in French to the inhabitants of Arles but then speaking in English to a Frenchman like Gauguin.

The portraying of XIX^th-century France is a bit limited. Few locations are shown, and with few characters, showing that the production of the film is quite modest. The piano music by Lisovskaya suits the action adequately.

As for acting, Willem Dafoe does a good interpretation of Van Gogh's character, passionate but quiet. Despite the usual trend in cinematography of using actors that are way older than the characters they play (Dafoe being 63 years old compared to 34 to 37 year-old Van Gogh, almost twice the age), he never feels too old to be in character. Equally good is Oscar Isaac as Paul Gauguin – the passionate discussions about painting between the two of them make for the best drama scenes of the film. Also good is Rupert Friend as Theo, Van Gogh's supportive brother.

All in all, an entertaining but sometimes lacking biographic film. 3 out of 5.

Title:	At Eternity's Gate
Genre:	Biographic
Year:	2018
Nationality:	Switzerland, Ireland, UK, France, USA
Colour:	Colour
Director:	Julian Schnabel
Writer:	Jean-Claude Carrière, Julian Schnabel, Louise Kugelberg
Cast:	Willem Dafoe, Rupert Friend, Oscar Isaac, Mads Mikkelsen, Mathieu Amalric, Emmanuelle Seigner, Niels Arestrup, Anne Consigny, Amira Casar, Vincent Perez, Lolita Chammah, Stella Schnabel, Vladimir Consigny, Arthur Jacquin, Solal Forte, Vincent Grass, Clément Paul Lhuaire, Alan Aubert, Laurent Bateau, Frank Molinaro, Montassar Alaya, Didier Jarre, Thierry Nenez, Johan Kugelberg, Alexis Michalik, François Delaive, Nicolas Abraham, Manuel Guillot, Paul Théotime, Romane Libert, Milo Aubriet, Clélia Robin-Oeustricher, Arthur Gloanec, Alfred Bloch, Ludmilla Roitbourd, Louis Garrel
Producer:	Jon Kilik, Jasmin Kirner, Richard Mansell
Executive producer:	Maximilien Arvelaiz, Charles-Marie Anthonioz, Mourad Belkeddar, Nik Bower, François-Xavier Decraene, Jean Duhamel, Nicolas Lhermitte, Deepak Nayar, Marc Schmidheiny, Thorsten Schumacher, Karl Spoerri, Fernando Sulichin, Claire Taylor
Production designer:	Stéphane Cressend
Cinematographer:	Benoît Delhomme
Film editor:	Louise Kugelberg, Julian Schnabel
Art Director:	Loïc Chavanon
Set Decorator:	Cecile Vatelot
Costume Designer:	Karen Muller Serreau
Music:	Tatiana Lisovskaya
Running time:	111 minutes
Language:	English, French