Review At Eternity's Gate [2018] | loganbennett

IMDb listing

Los Angeles Times (K. Turan) review

RogerEbert.Com (B. Tallerico) evaluation

AVClub (M. D'Angelo) assessment

At Eternity's Gate [2018] (directed and cowritten through manner of Julian Schnabel alongside withJean-Claude Carri?Re and Louise Kugelberg) tells the tale, again, of tormented impressionist artist Vincent Van Gogh [wikip] [IMDb] (played inside the cutting-edge film pretty admirably by Willem Dafoe).

Why would an artist who _never_ sold even one of his paintings during his life time, who clearly was tormented (he _cut off his ear_ for God's sake in apparently a terribly misguided expression of ... unrequited love) and who arguably committed suicide (though he could have even flubbed that up ... being killed instead by simply random petty thieves) BE SO FASCINATING TO SO MANY PEOPLE (US) TODAY?  Exactly ;-)

It would seem thatVincent Van Gogh was an archeotypical supremely talented but tormented, misunderstood ... LOSER ;-).

It would seem that his legacy embodies fundamental fears that many of us have of "never being able to make our mark" (though somehow we'd feel entitled to make said mark ;-).  And yes, like Franz Kafka (another tormented soul, never really appreciated in his lifetime) he's been vindicated -- IN SPADES (!) -- since his death, more than a century ago (!).  TODAY we look at his pictures, so many of them SO FAMOUS _now_ and wonder "how it it possible that people didn't see his genius while he was alive?"

SO ... quiet loser in his life time (and againWillem Dafoe plays him really, really well) ... he embodies a hope that "one day" those who don't understand us ... will.

Honestly, GREAT introspective / tormented, and dare one say _impressionistic_ film ;-).

<NOTE - Do you like what you've been reading here?  If you do then consider giving a small donation to this Blog (sugg. $6 _non-recurring_) _every so often_ to continue/further its operation.  To donate justCLICK HERE.  Thank you! :-) >