At Eternity's Gate: Vincent van Don't

At Eternity's Gate is a movie I did not know existed until Willem Dafoe got a Best Actor Oscar nomination for it. In my OCD desire to be an Oscar completist, I therefore watched this movie. And promptly wished I could get those two hours of my life back.

It is very clear that a lot of work went into making this movie, and critics seem to think it's great. But I suspect only critics went to see it instead of regular people who expect some kind of entertainment value from their cinema. I found this movie to be a terrific slog, and while I don't go out of my way to write bad reviews, I find myself needing to pen down what I found so insufferable about it, in the hopes that someone who liked it will set me straight (politely). 

First, what's with the language choices in this movie? Dafoe mostly keeps his American accent but will then start talking French in brief snatches. I would assume this is meant to convey his sense of otherness as he goes through mental illness - everyone around him is speaking French, while he's not? Except then Oscar Isaac, who is playing Paul Gauguin, does the same thing. What does it mean? Are the people who speak English kindred spirits while the random people who speak French supposed to signify the people who misunderstand van Gogh and his artistic genius? Or maybe I'm reading too much into it and it's just lazy filmmaking. 

Second, there's no real plot per se. It meanders on about a man who's going through a mental decline and it's never very clear when you're seeing things from his schizophrenic perspective versus when you're seeing actual events unfold. None of it is really interesting anyway; mostly this is a movie that trafficks in a lot of silence and watching van Gogh paint in the great outdoors. There's a LOT of painting in this movie and listen, I love van Gogh, but I don't need to literally watch paint dry on film. 

I'm not sure why Dafoe got the Oscar nomination. It sounds like he did a lot of research and learned to paint, so maybe he's getting props for extra credit, but in the movie itself, I did not find this performance to be particularly moving or compelling. It's a fine bit of casting because he does look a lot like van Gogh, but other than that, I was not floored. The dialogue also felt enormously stilted, clearly written from the perspective of someone in 2019 who knows how beloved van Gogh is in our time. There's a lot of ploddingly portentous, "oh no one appreciates my work, but they will some day!" 

At Eternity's Gate is beautiful to look at and director Julian Schnabel has done a wonderful job in terms of setting scenes in impressionistic landscapes that showcase what van Gogh was drawing from when he painted his masterpieces. However, the camerawork is very shaky and almost Blair Witch-esque for no apparent reason (mental illness again, maybe? If so, we get it, the man was nuts, settle down!) and everything seems a bit shoddy and rushed. Ultimately, this movie is an ode to Vincent van Gogh by someone who really loves his art, but has nothing substantial to say about the man himself. My greatest takeaway from this film was that I wanted to go to the Met and spend a day in the European Gallery staring at van Gogh's paintings. But I have zero desire to re-watch this movie.