when i first noticed this movie, i think i never watched the complete trailer, but i knew it's a movie that's going to be made in the style of paintings. it immediately reminded me of shirley - visions of reality, which i wrote about and enjoyed much. so i thought it's gonna be in a similar way, or at least i thought i'd experience similar kind of excitement. turns out, it exceeds all my expectations. from the beginning to the end, i have never enjoyed each of every scenes of a movie as much as i did with this one. every single frame was hand painted, it's so captivating since the very first scene, i was kinda lost and i had to replay it again from the beginning as soon as i finished. even until the very end, the movie ended in the song "starry starry night" sung by lianne de havas, which closed the movie beautifully.
in fact, i stayed until the whole movie credit was rolled feeling like i appreciated so much all the artists and production crews involved in this art project. i watched several behind the scenes videos, i just couldn't imagine how excited the artists were working on such project while also at the same time feeling the excruciating process of it.
unlike shirley - visions of reality where they turn painting into movie scene with real actors, loving vincent was animated fully from paintings, although they first shot with real actors before each frames were later translated into paintings. i enjoyed the details of each painting. how they created rain effect with oil paints, for instance. and unlike shirley, where the movie were shot in static frames from the thirteen of edward hopper's paintings, in vincent the cinematography is dynamic and beautiful. the lighting effect plays great importance in each painting to make it not fall flat. my favorite were the night scenes, especially the one by the boat, where the lighting were minimal but so subtle. the flashback scenes painted in black and white were also a great play on light and shadows. and also unlike shirley, the storyline itself was much more simple. it makes the audience questions the whole thing but it's all closed nicely despite whatever conclusion we might had in mind. the fact that the story of his life was made in his style of painting somehow made me empathize more and in a way loving vincent van gogh even more. as written here, loving vincent is a movable feast of a film that illustrates why, after more than a century after his death, we continue on loving vincent. having said all these, loving vincent is definitely definitely on the list of the most beautiful movies i have ever seen.
