Biopics don't always have great reputations, but to me despite many playing loose with the facts and quite a lot not exploring their subjects enough or being too conventional many have a lot to recommend on their own merits as films. Vincent van Gogh's paintings are a thing of beauty and van Gogh was a very fascinating man and one of history's most influential artists. Willem Dafoe has also been great, fantastic even, in other things. So there were plenty of reasons as to why 'At Eternity's Gate' had big potential to be great.

'At Eternity's Gate', when finally watching it, is a bit of a tricky one for me. Some may find it easier to rate and review, whether love or hate, but the film left me pondering over it for a long time. A big part of me really admired 'At Eternity's Gate' and found a big amount to like and even love about it. Part of me was also a little disappointed, felt that it could have been better and its shortcomings could have been easily avoided. That it was not your usual or conventional biopic was interesting in itself and was appreciated, makes it stand out.

Will start with the good. A lot of criticism has been directed towards the photography and music. Personally did not have anywhere near as big a problem. Although some of the editing is dizzying and a bit unfocused, the photography is striking and captures the beauty of art and nature beautifully. Also matching van Gogh's increasing and rapidly deteriating mental state ideally. The landscapes are the very meaning of picturesque. Didn't have an issue with the music score, subtlety was not an issue in placement at times but it did strike an emotional chord and matched the film's mournful tone.

Some of the writing is thoughtful and poignant 'At Eternity's Gate' is not an easy or happy watch narratively, but as van Gogh's life or at his later years were as long away from happy as one can get that was not a problem at all. Found the story to be generally very affecting and the latter parts especially moving and avoids being too speculative. The acting is near-uniformly great, while Rupert Friend, Mads Mikkelsen and Emmanuelle Seigner give very nuanced performances with their expressions and eyes speaking volumes and louder than their still strong line delivery the film belongs to Dafoe. Who is just captivating, and the intensity and pathos he brings to van Gogh is truly powerful in a tear-jerking way.

The one exception is Oscar Isaac, whose caricaturish scenery chewing fails utterly to be in keeping with the tone of the film, the smirking quite annoying. Can understand completely where people are coming from regarding the pace, am not somebody that thinks that if something is paced deliberately/slowly it's immediately bad but count me in as another person that found 'At Eternity's Gate' too slow and attention does wander in the more wordless scenes.

Part of the problem in this regard, a big problem, is that there are too many scenes that go on for too long for reasons not really obvious. The writing does tend to be too waffling and can be a little self-indulgent, with a missed opportunity to delve in deeper. Was not crazy about the editing at times too.

Overall, was very conflicted over what rating to give 'At Eternity's Gate' and had to think hard about what to write about in the review, but although for me its shortcomings were quite big the numerous good things were so fantastic it was difficult to be too hard on it. 6.5-7/10

"At Eternity's Gate" is a 110-minute movie from 2018 that is the most recent effort by writer and director and painter Julian Schnabel. He got help with the script from the truly experienced Oscar winner Jean-Claude Carrière as well as the (in terms of film writing) rather inexperienced Louise Kugelberg. The English title is fairly non-telling, but the German title and probably also some others include the name of the film's protagonist Vincent van Gogh. You could maybe say that he was always at insanity's gate as well perhaps, but also that death may have been looking just around the corner on several occasions. This is a co-production between no less than 4 European countries as well as the USA and it is mostly in the English language with parts in French. At least I think so. The French parts were subtitles in my showing while the English parts were dubbed and I would say these were more frequent, even with French being listed as first language here. However, there are also long sequences that do not involve talking at all or only include voice over narration, mostly those parts that have van Gogh on his own in the nature. The central character is played by Willem Dafoe. And while I may be a bit biased here because I really like him, it is probably the only acceptable opinion that he was very very good. I think he was the frontrunner early awards season, very early, but then the focus shifted away from him more and more and eventually his Oscar nomination was already a bit of a surprise. I am a big fan of Malek in Bohemian Rhapsody too, but I also totally could have accepted Dafoe winning, even if I like the latter's film considerably less. He is perhaps by now the most overdue actor to get an Oscar and seeing him being nominated twice in a row makes me a bit happy after the long break before that. He scored his first nomination already over 30 years ago. Anyway, this film is not just Dafoe. There are two other actors in here that I like a lot. One would be Oscar Isaac who plays Dafoe's close friend and fellow artist Paul Gauguin. I thought he was good as always too. You never knew if he was just a narcissist or really a good friend, but maybe his letter we see eventually stands for the latter. But the way he talks to van Gogh at times, even if he supports him, also lets me think that he sees himself as something superior, perhaps because he is more emotionally stable, not necessarily because he is a more gifted artist. I am of course mostly referring to the part when he talks about leaving him that really makes a truly negative impact on van Gogh. And then there is Mads Mikkelsen, he is fun as always, but sadly only very short in this movie. It is a one-scene performance towards the end as a priest very critical about the painter's works, but he is an absolute scene stealer and it is amzing to see what he does with the character especially because the camera is really only on his face all the time, even if in an interesting ankle. So yeah I may also be biased with Mikkelsen and Isaac as I like both a lot in other projects, but I think they really added to the fact that the cast here is the movie's biggest strength.

Other experienced European actors like Friend, Amalric, Casar and Arestrup add to that as well. It is without a doubt a very well-acted movie. Unfortunatery, there are also some weaknesses here and there that keep me from giving it a higher rating. I must say I was not too big on the soundtrack unfortunately. Especially towards the end, the funeral scene, it was too loud and dominating for me and in-between there were several moments when it felt similarly. Visually, it was good movie though for the most part, there are some pretty good sets here like again with the funeral when we see him lying there surrounded by his gigantic amount of paintings. And people see them and admire them (not all),but don't really care of the artist and his tragedy. It must have been an interesting moment for Dafoe himself to see that scene. And I also liked what they did with the story. There is decent attention to detail most of the time. I liked how we get to see his poverty and that his art is rejected. The moment when the priest moves the painting he deems vile in a way that nobody can see it was almost genius. Very well done by Mikkelsen again. He gave up on him basically and that's why he lets van Gogh out of the asylum, not because he is healed or anything. But today we know despite all his psychological struggles (and they are undeniable - a cut-off ear is a cut-off ear),he was too big a genius for people to recognize back then. It is very fitting that almost all the time people talk about Vincent, they mention him as Theo's brother with the latter having the more respected job being a merchant and not a painter without any talent who dreams all day long. There is one particular camera shot in here that emphasized that very well when we see the two together lying in bed hugging each other how Theo is, despite being the younger, physically strong and more noticable. Even if he pays for Vincent and is there in his hours of pain, he is far from a great brother with how quickly he has to leave again and to me, even if there were no specific indicators, it felt very much through that he is embarrassed by his brother. If only he knew how we see him today...

Also included is a brief reference about what Gauguin thought about other talented artists from that time was interesting that you may overhear if you don't pay attention for a moment. Speaking of Gauguin, you may also want to check out Vincent Cassel's performance in a movie about Gauguin's retreat to the island from a few years ago. Now back to van Gogh, I am struggling a bit with calling this one here a biopic as it does not start in his youth or so, even if we find out some things indirectly like the man's own clerical past in his youth and family background. This is definitely not a film for everybody. There are specific moments that may not have an impact at all on non-arthouse film-goers, such as the lengthy black screens, sometimes with voice-overs. The film actually starts with one before moving to a beautiful landscape. The final sequence with van Gogh being shot also feels a bit unusual. Certainly no traditional filmmaking here on several occasions and you see Schnabel's own artistic tribute. I guess he made a tribute here, perhaps to one of his heroes. As for the shooting scene at the end, it does feel a bit for the sake of it and it wasn't totally required to end the film with van Gogh's death. There were many other options. But I liked how they did it and the approach they gave it. It is really all about the reference he makes to blame and guilt. Early on kids attack him with stones and he fights back hopelessly before being beaten up by their fathers. When he accidentally gets to close to the girl on the road with nothing but artistic integrity on his mind, once again he painfully has to pay for it. So when he gets hurt the most severely eventually, his spirit seems to be broken already and he won't say the names anymore, but deal with his fate, maybe also knowing that he is gone soon and that it won't change anything anymore. Interesting idea for sure. All in all, this is a good film with some great moments here and there. I recommend watching it, preferrably oon the big screen and I enjoyed it for the most part. Being closer to the 2-hour mark than 1.5-hour mark, it also did not feel too long by any means. It is not on the level where I would call it one of the best films of 2018 (2019 release here),but Dafoe's performance is top-notch and it is nice to see him getting all this recognition. Kinda painfully ironic that the biggest honor refused to him was an SAG nomination by his peers. They should know better. Go see "At Eternity's Gate". You will be well entertained and also learn a lot new if you aren't a van Gogh expert. It's without a doubt a thumbs-up for me here, Dafoe alone is a reason enough to watch this movie and if you like him (and the other cast members) as much as I do, it is close to a must-see.

Vincent van Gogh is widely recognized as one of the grand masters of impressionism. That is, he's now recognized thusly. During his lifetime, he only managed to sell one painting. Maybe it was that he was too far ahead of his time that people just couldn't appreciate his genius. It wasn't until almost 50 years after his death that people really started taking notice of his work.

Julian Schnabel's "At Eternity's Gate" looks at the last few years of van Gogh's life, including the notorious incident with his ear. Willem Dafoe (in an Academy Award-nominated role) puts his all into the role of the painter, who appears at the end of his emotional rope. It's not the greatest movie ever, but the strength of the performances makes up for any shortcoming.