Review: At Eternity's Gate
Focusing on the troubled painter's final years in the South of France, At Eternity's Gate is no conventional biopic of Vincent Van Gogh. Sensory and episodic, sequences of wordless majesty combined with philosophical exchanges about the nature, creation and purpose of art, it is a transfixing look not only into the mind of an artist but also a man who perhaps was not designed to co-exist with mere mortals.
Director Julian Schnabel is no stranger to using an unique approach in depicting the lives of highly creative individuals, but his impressionistic yet cogent portrait of Van Gogh arguably surpasses his previous renderings of contemporary artist Jean-Michel Basquiat (Basquiat), Cuban poet and novelist Reinaldo Arenas (Before Night Falls), and French editor and writer Jean-Dominique Bauby (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly). As in those previous films, Schnabel is assisted enormously a tremendously talented leading man, in this case a luminous and transcendent Willem Dafoe, who embodies Van Gogh with an almost otherworldly aura.
"I just want to be one of them," Van Gogh confides in the opening moments of the film, a statement that speaks to his loneliness and sense of being other. Yet as the film progresses, it and Van Gogh himself prove the opposite for it is in being different that Van Gogh was most himself and, as a result, literally and metaphorically apart from most everyone else. "Maybe God made me a painter for people who aren't born yet," he says to the priest (Mads Mikkelsen) who is there to assess his sanity.
Indeed, Van Gogh is overwhelmed - and perhaps damaged - by what he sees and attempts to capture. There are numerous beautiful moments of Van Gogh staring out into the world - besotted by its wonder and loveliness - and it's almost a communion for him, but it is also a bittersweet symphony for inasmuch as he is running towards something, he is escaping from himself. Explaining his method to fellow painter Paul Gauguin (Oscar Isaac), who advises him to be calm and measured and to consider the marriage of paint to canvas, Van Gogh states that paintings have to be done in one clear gesture, that he needs to be in a fever state, to be out of control, and the faster he paints, the better he feels and the more he forgets himself.
Painting was both a form of expression and exorcism. Van Gogh was plagued with visions, many menacing, and his ever deteriorating mental state would drive him to the most extreme measure of cutting off his ear, not only as a way to cut this malevolent force out of himself, but as an apologia to Gauguin, who had recently devastated him with the news that he was returning to Paris. Schnabel's unorthodox approach - the fragmentation of scenes, the disorientating camerawork, the dialogue that loops back upon itself - may be off-putting to some, but it perfectly places viewers in Van Gogh's agonised and despairing mind.
Again, Dafoe is essential in holding the film together. Without him, At Eternity's Gate would still be a stunning piece of filmmaking. With him, the film reaches masterwork status. In many respects, his Van Gogh is a spiritual sibling to his Jesus Christ in The Last Temptation of Christ - both misunderstood, both ostracised, both undergoing immense torture in order to bestow their gifts and their message upon the world. Dafoe's performance is a sort of rapture - hellish, holy and heartbreaking - and he resurrects Van Gogh in a way that puts all other incarnations to shame.
At Eternity's Gate
Directed by: Julian Schnabel
Written by: Jean-Claude Carrière, Julian Schnabel, Louise Kugelberg
Starring: Willem Dafoe, Rupert Friend, Oscar Isaac, Mads Mikkelsen, Mathieu Amalric, Emmanuelle Seigner, Niels Arestrup, Anne Consigny, Vincent Perez, Amira Casar
