At Eternity's Gate

At Eternity's Gate

Starring Willem Dafoe, Oscar ISaac, Rupert Friend, Mads Mikkelsen

Directed by Julian Schnabel

The Story:
Vincent van Gogh (Willem Dafoe) was always a highly intellectual and talented painter, but spent the last years of his life tormented by inner demons and loneliness.  Apart from his loving brother Theo (Rupert Friend) and his only friend Paul Gauguin (Oscar Isaac), Vincent spent the rest of his life alone, painting in nature because he feels that he can adequately express true nature to people who would never understand it.  His final years were plagued and showed the artist's truest talents - and truest madness.

The Synopsis:
I've never been a real art buff, but I do respect the talent it takes to make such eternal masterpieces.  I've heard all the big names, and Vincent van Gogh is one of the biggest, but not so much for his talent but rather his eccentric nature - typically, when you mention his name to non-artistic people, the only thing they really remember about the man was that he cut off his own ear.  Yet there was so much more to the man, and while "At Eternity's Gate" doesn't profile his life like most biopic films, it does manage to show us the man in a very vulnerable time, where he fully expresses what seems to be the truth when it comes to the man - that God made him a painter "for people who weren't born yet."

Willem Dafoe is one of cinema's biggest unsung heroes, a man who fully emerges himself in any role he's given, no matter how over-the-top it may be (see "Spider-Man" for that reference).  The man has earned several Academy Award nominations, and he continues to rack up the nominations with this film, and it is much deserved.  Although he's 62 (and van Gogh died when he was 37), you can really feel the essence of van Gogh echoing through Dafoe's performance, where you don't even recognize the vast age difference.  This film is all about Vincent van Gogh, and in retrospect about Willem Dafoe as well - there's hardly a moment where he's not front-and-center on the screen, and director Julian Schnabel uses everything in his directing arsenal to deliver a unique look at one of art's most unique characters.

Seeing the slow demise of a genius is generally sad and temped, but here Dafoe gives van Gogh an inner strength that comes out through his art as well as his philosophies.  He fully confesses that he has an inner demon haunting him, but we never find out what that is - or if it's even an entity at all.  Instead we see van Gogh struggling with his life, trying to produce his own unique brand of art that's seen as wasted from his other artists, and much as it's said about Captain America - he's a man out of time.  As he sits in a mental asylum after cutting off his ear, he confesses to a priest that he believes God messed up by having him exist now and not in the future, as he feels his paintings aren't for those living then, but for future generations - and in a way he's entirely correct, as the work he's done has become much more valued now than it was when he was alive.

Apart from Dafoe, the other standout performance comes from Oscar Isaac, who plays van Gogh's best friend - and fellow artist - Paul Gauguin.  This friendship is anything but ordinary, as van Gogh practically relies of Gauguin for his own sanity - yet it's not Gauguin's job to keep van Gogh sane.  Isaac gives a terrific performance as he tries to maintain his friendship but also keeping watch on his own talent, as the two men share a talent, but with vastly different styles that repel as much as they connect.

The film does a great job not just showing van Gogh's descent into a form of madness (seeing the camera bouncing wildly as he experiences traumatic events, seeing the world through his eyes, or having lines repeated by other people that blend over the words being spoken at the time), but also produces a form of art all its own.  Van Gogh is living in a bleak, dank world, but when he goes out to paint in nature, it's vibrant colors and everything has a sense of awestruck wonder that van Gogh himself probably saw.  It's these moments that really set the film apart, as there's a few moments of several minutes of no dialogue, just van Gogh traversing the countryside and appreciating the true beauty of nature - and we get to tag along as well.

The Summary:
Giving a different biopic feature, "At Eternity's Gate" focuses on the philosophies and torments of one of the art world's most prolific and memorable painters, and provides us with one of Willem Dafoe's finest performances.

The Score: A