Aidan Turner, Eleanor Tomlinson, Chris O’Dowd
Oscar-winning British animator Hugh Welchman and his wife, Polish artist and director Dorota Kobiela have brought together 65,000 oil painted frames – produced by 115 professional artists and using over 3,000 litres of oil paint – to form Loving Vincent, a stunning cinematic achievement billed as ‘the first fully painted feature film in the world.’
29th July, 1890: Vincent Van Gogh, bullet in his belly, stumbles along the drowsy high street of Auvers at twilight. Traditionally, the famously troubled artist’s death is viewed as suicide. But Loving Vincent delves into the ambiguities of his life and last days to reconsider this narrative via the stories of his paintings and the people who inhabit them.
Footage originally performed by a cast including Robert Gulaczyk, Saoirse Ronan, Aidan Turner and Helen McCrory forms the basis of frames which mimic Van Gogh’s singular Impressionist technique. Thick daubs of flickering, variegated colours play over each character’s face, revealing the depth and ambiguity of their shifting thoughts and emotions in a truly innovative way and enhancing our understanding of a canonical artist and his great interior anguish.