At Eternity's Gate (4 Stars)

There seems to be a Vincent Van Gogh craze at the moment. "Loving Vincent" was made in 2017, one of the most beautiful films ever made, as far as the visuals are concerned. Then there was the play "The Life of Vincent Van Gogh" two years ago. There was another play about him in Stuttgart last year that I didn't go to see. Now there's "At Eternity's Gate", a film about the last two years of his life.

Maybe the current excitement has been caused by the recent discovery of 65 new sketches by Van Gogh in 2015. They're also shown in the film.

The film concentrates on Van Gogh's mania, which kept him isolated from everyone around him. He painted because it was the only thing he could do. God had given him this gift, but it was also a curse, because he was unable to earn any money from his painting. He lived on the generosity of his younger brother Theo, who regularly sent him money. Theo was an art dealer, but he was unable to sell his brother's paintings. They were too revolutionary. Did Theo appreciate his brother's paintings? Somehow I doubt it. For him, the value of an artist was measured by the price paid for his paintings. It wasn't until after his death that his brilliance was noticed by others.

Vincent Van Gogh's only friend was the artist Paul Gaugin. I knew about their friendship before I watched the film, but I didn't realise that it was so one-sided. Gaugin kept telling Van Gogh how to paint, slower and with more planning. Theo bribed Gaugin to be with Vincent. He paid him 250 Francs a month on condition that he would live in Arles, the small town where Vincent lived. He moved away when his paintings started to sell for higher prices. Gaugin was one of the painters who was lucky enough to be appreciated in his own lifetime.

The director tries to show us the world through Van Gogh's eyes. While I appreciate this, it's an impossible task. The only way we can know what Van Gogh saw is by looking at his paintings, so "Loving Vincent" is more successful in this respect. I could accept the scenes with over-exposed sunlight, but I was irritated when the picture was distorted or blurred. This made me want to rub my eyes.

If I'm allowed a little spoiler, I was surprised to see that in the film Van Gogh's death wasn't by suicide. The film shows him being shot accidentally by a teenage boy, after which he claimed it was a suicide attempt to protect him. That's an unusual theory.

The owner of a cafe in Arles gave Van Gogh an empty ledger to use for sketches. He mailed the ledger back to her shortly before his death. Supposedly she put it with the other ledgers without opening it. The collection of ledgers was passed from hand to hand, unopened, for 126 years, until the sketches were finally discovered in 2015.

After watching the film this evening I sat sadly in the train on the way home. I feel that I have the mania of an artist, but none of the talent of an artist. The only thing of any artistic value that I have ever created were the poems that I wrote from the age of 16 to 21. That was my creative phase. I remember that every day I looked around for something to write about, and when I saw something I rushed home. I don't know why I stopped writing. I woke up one day and the inspiration was gone. I kept all my poems in a box in the cellar and didn't open it until 20 years later. That was deliberate. I wanted to wait long enough to forget them, then read them again and see what sort of effect they had on me. After that I wanted to wait another 20 years, but the box was accidentally thrown away when the cellar was being cleaned. That's tragic. I still remember a few of my shorter poems, but my longer poems are all lost forever.