"We cannot speak other than by our paintings" Written by Vincent Van Gogh in a letter a week before his death. This was also used as the basis to the 2017 film of Loving Vincent, a gorgeously animated film, animated by painting over 65,000 frames over 1,000 canvases in the style of Van Gogh's artwork.
As a fan of Van Gogh, I was looking forward to viewing this film, finally I decided to sit and view it and I wasn't disappointed. What lay before me was a wonder of art brought to life by modern day artists and animators, using the history of Van Gogh, from his letters to his paintings to tell the story of his life and death.
The use of colour and the style in the film really stands out, using Van Gogh's style allows us as viewers to love and appreciate his work further. I found it unbelievably clever and ingenius to use black and white and a different style completely to show 'flashbacks' of the story, scenes where people are discussing Vincent whilst he was alive and then swapping to the colourful, expressive palette to switch back to the present. This technique I feel really brings out the impact Vincent had on people's lives, both back then and today, only AFTER his death.
The clever use of the aspect ratio in the film also was reminiscent of Van Gogh's paintings and canvas size, allowing the viewer to be fully immersed in his paintings.
All in all, it is a gorgeously animated film, one of which you can tell that the artists, directors and team working on it did not create this film to gain fame nor fortune, but to display talent and the works of a genius artist.
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