The makers of the animated marvel “Loving Vincent” set about two gargantuan tasks: to capture the beauty of Vincent Van Gogh’s paintings on film and to explore the enduring mystery of the Dutch painter’s final weeks and untimely suicide in 1890.
Where directors Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman, who spearheaded this seven-year labor of love, may have fallen short in explaining Van Gogh’s early death, their luminous animation — 65,000 frames, all oil paintings by a crew of 125 artists — makes you feel the delicacy and urgency of his brushstrokes.
The script, written by the directors and Jacek Dehnel, begins a year after Van Gogh’s death at age 37 in the French town of Auvers-sur-Oise, outside Paris.