Loving Vincent

If there is something that the PR people from the film Loving Vincent want you to glean from the press materials for this hybrid doc on the death of the famous artist Vincent van Gogh, it is this: There were a lot of people painstakingly crafting this film. Seven years of production, 125 artists lovingly rendering every frame, and who knows how many babies were born during that period.

The end result, an animated collage of most of van Gogh’s paintings, lovingly rendered by those artists toiling away, seeks to be an examination of his death. (Which, by the way, was of suicide after he shot himself with a gun and then later died in his bed at age 37 in 1890.) And I dare say that it is probably the unfortunate task of the film critic to point out that however many days or months or years you spend working on a project, if the end result is unsuccessful, it doesn’t matter.

The plot of Loving Vincent is extremely threadbare: The son of a postman is tasked with delivering a letter van Gogh sent to his brother Theo. Much mystery swirls around whether van Gogh shot himself (There were youths! With guns! In the vicinity!) and the life of the famous (after his death) artist is examined with a degree that might satisfy a classroom of Art History 101 students, but you may get a C+.

Van Gogh was prolific, and in about a decade of work, the Dutch post-Impressionist created some 2,100 artworks, including about 860 oil paintings. More than 120 years after he died, his work is still the stuff of widely reprinted posters and postcards and originals are sacred museum stops.

What Loving Vincent really is is a love letter to the brushstrokes and the colors that van Gogh saw, the enduring images he created on canvas. That is where the film really shines. If this were a video essay tableau of fluid re-creations of the master’s work, I would have been more than happy.

But to hang it all on some contrived piece of nonsense that begins as a game of Clue and ends with the frustration of a game of Risk is a frustrating departure from the elements that make this a good and enjoyable film. Because as beautiful as Loving Vincent may appear, there is nothing behind the brushstrokes.

LOVING VINCENT (1.5) Directed by Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman • Starring Douglas Booth, Jerome Flynn, Robert Gulaczyk • Rated PG-13 • 94 min. • At Osio Theater.