As a famously hand-painted film about Vincent van Gogh, there was no way we wouldn’t be watching this one. Oddly enough this is a Polish production due to the fact that it was conceived by a Polish woman Dorota Kobiela who is credited as a co-director. It was also partially funded through a Kickstarter campaign.

Following the death of Van Gogh, his friend the postmaster Joseph Roulin finds an undelivered letter from the painter to his brother Theo van Gogh. He sends his son Armand to deliver it personally and so Theo heads to Paris. He meets Van Gogh’s art supplier Père Tanguy who informs him that Theo died several months after Vincent and advises him to look for Paul Gachet in Auvers who treated Vincent for his depression. This is because Joseph was curious why Vincent would commit suicide shortly after he had been seemingly cured. At Auvers, Armand speaks with several people who knew him there including the innkeeper Adeline Ravoux, Dr. Gachet’s daughter Marguerite and a local boatman. Asking after the circumstances of Vincent’s death, he finds that there are some inconsistencies in the various stories and comes to believe that there might be more to his death than a straightforward suicide.

The film’s look is indeed quite unique though it probably works best for enthusiasts who are familiar with the painter’s body of work. They did film real actors for this project and then painted them over but apparently adapted Van Gogh’s paintings for the backgrounds. While it looks interesting and I suppose it is appropriate that a film about the painter should adapt his own art style, at the same time, it is also a surprisingly mechanistic process. Personally I’ve never really liked any animated works that used filmed actors and then painted over them. It seems to me that this kills the dynamism of using animation in the first place and the same principle applies here. In this case, I admit that the painting looks more impressive than usual here, carrying a sense of it looking more real than actual photography, but I always remember that they’re just painting over film and that lessens the effect.

Unfortunately all this art is in service of a story that is just not all that interesting. The film lampshades the point itself by having Marguerite ask Armand why he is so obsessed with Vincent’s death when surely it is his life that matters. Yet the point remains and mucking about over whether or not there was some kind of conspiracy or whether Dr. Gachet really did have Vincent’s best interests at heart all seems to be rather tangential to what makes Vincent van Gogh such an important figure in art history. There are bits of this such as when Marguerite comments about how she realized that Vincent was a genius but most of the film feels rather like missing the point. I would rather hear more about how he got into art and how his contemporaries viewed him. It’s not as if there is a surfeit of films about the painter’s life after all and focusing only on his death seems rather distasteful.

All in all, while there is some value in seeing the art style here I consider this to be only mediocre. The painter deserves a better film about him than this and personally I think his depression and probable suicide, though they are oft cited anecdotes, are the least interesting parts of his life.