Vincent Van Gogh is one of the most striking and outstanding French painters. The artist’s creativity is the property not only of his native country, but of the whole world. He is undoubtedly one of the best post-impressionists. No wonder his paintings are highly valued by both ordinary amateurs and skilled art collectors.
The animated film "With Love, Vincent", the reviews of which exalted the picture very highly, is the first full-length cartoon in the history of the cinema to exist, entirely painted with oil paints.
About the cartoon
"Van Gogh. With love, Vincent," which is mostly positive reviews, is a unique project. He has no analogues at the moment.
Two states were engaged in the production of tape at once: Great Britain and Poland. Worldwide rental began in June 2017, and in Russia it was shown in November of the same year.
The movie "Van Gogh. With love, Vincent" according to reviews of both Russian and foreign viewers was a real revelation of this year. The project, although it was released in many countries for limited rental, had a very powerful impact on the modern viewer.
Van Gogh biography
Before you examine in detail the animated film itself, it is worthwhile familiarizing yourself with the life of the artist himself.
The painter is rightfully considered the property of world art and culture, since his work has had and continues to have a great impact on the history and formation of fine art.
Van Gogh was born in 1853 in the city of Grot-Sündert (Netherlands). He grew up in his homeland. His family was quite wealthy, his father was a pastor. Vincent even tried to build a career as a clergyman, but he did not like this craft.
Growing up, he got a job in the trading company of his uncle, whom he called "Uncle Saint." He was engaged in the sale of works of art. Here his craving for creativity and painting only intensified.
Van Gogh lived and worked in London for some time, and then settled in France, where he lived almost the entire second half of his life. It was here that he finally devoted himself to painting. In fact, he was self-taught, because he did not finish art schools.
His life ended quite tragically on July 29, 1890. It is about his life and mysterious death that the film "Van Gogh. With Love, Vincent" narrates, the reviews of which speak for themselves.
Plot
As already mentioned above, the picture tells the story of the artist’s life, focusing on the facts from his biography. However, it is not limited to a banal enumeration of events, but is based precisely on his moral, psychological experiences, etc.
"Van Gogh. With love, Vincent" - a cartoon, from the reviews of which you can understand that the audience was deeply inspired by the plot of the picture. Watching this tape, the viewer involuntarily begins to empathize with the main character, plunging his head into his life.
It makes no sense to retell the plot, which is actually known to anyone who is familiar with the biography of the artist. It is much more important to feel everything that the authors wanted to convey to the audience, therefore, only by watching this cartoon personally, you can understand whether he likes it or not.
"With Love, Vincent": reviews and reviews
This picture has made a real splash in the world of cinema. Almost all in unison claim that this is a real breakthrough of the year. Professional film critics and ordinary amateur viewers insist that the film is truly a masterpiece.
The ratings of the cartoon are very high, and the vast majority of reviews and reviews are positive. Especially distinguished as its advantages are its atmospheric atmosphere, visual beauty, well-designed dialogs and a good script.
But most of all the film enthusiasts liked the animated solution, because each frame is drawn with oil paints. Such a long and painstaking work was appreciated.
There are some drawbacks, but it’s hard to call them serious disadvantages. The picture is a little depressing and not very dynamic, so not everyone will like it.
Interesting Facts
The original name of the tape looks like Loving Vincent, which in translation into Russian can be interpreted as "With love, Vincent." According to the opinions of the audience, this is the name of the tape that is most suitable. However, Russian distributors decided to add Van Gogh postscript at the beginning. This was done due to the fact that in Russia not everyone knows that the artist's name was Vincent, and Van Gogh is widely heard.
The first show of the animated film took place at the International Festival of Animated Films, which takes place in the French city of Annecy.
The entire tape consists of 62,450 frames, which were manually created on canvases. In fact, every frame is a whole picture painted with oil paints. Over a hundred artists worked on their creation, which imitated the style of Van Gogh himself. Therefore, all the praise for the film "With Love, Vincent" is justified in full.
Production
The process of creating this cartoon project was quite laborious and lengthy. The film was produced by BreakThru Films and Trademark Films, organized by D. Parfitt.
The film was directed by Dorota Kobela and Hugh Welshman. They also became scriptwriters of the tape. It is worth noting that they worked wonderfully, creating a truly interesting and thoughtful film.
The project was financed by the Institute of Cinema of Poland, but its investment infusion was not enough, so I had to resort to fundraising using crowdfunding. The fundraising project was organized at one of the largest sites of this type in the world Kickstarter.
In the end, production was completed almost 7 years after it began. Before starting to create a full meter, a short film of 7 minutes was released to understand whether people have an interest in such a project. She was received very warmly, so the full-length version was a matter of time and money. As a result, the cartoon "With Love, Vincent" appeared. According to the opinions of the audience, it can be judged that the project was successful.
Box office
As mentioned above, the production of the film was very long and laborious, therefore it is not surprising that the total budget of the project amounted to 5 million euros, which, of course, is not such a large figure by the standards of big movies, but for a group of enthusiastic artists it is very significant.
With such a budget and an almost complete absence of investments in marketing, the picture, of course, came out at a rather limited rental, but this did not stop her from paying off. Unfortunately, the tape did not receive as much money as its creators and fans would like, but commercial success is evident.
As for the Russian hire, the film managed to raise almost half a million dollars, which is a pretty good indicator for a low-budget film.
Conclusion
Modern cinema and animation are at the peak of their popularity, so hundreds or even thousands of films around the world come out annually. In such fierce competition, it is difficult to enthrall anything, much less surprise the public.
The film "Van Gogh. With Love Vincent", judging by the reviews of viewers and critics, managed to do it. He made an incredibly powerful impression, not only on fans of the artist's work, but also on people unfamiliar with his work and painting in general.
This tape and its creators managed to prove to the whole world that even without having a lot of money, opportunities, but having invested all their soul and effort, you can achieve unprecedented heights. After going through all the difficulties, they still completed their project, making it a real masterpiece of modern animation.
People who liked this cartoon can only hope that the team working on its creation will continue to delight the audience with new projects. Thanks to the success of the van Gogh biopic, this has become more than possible. Indeed, for sure, such talented, purposeful, and ambitious people have many more interesting ideas that they would love to work on creating.