The viewer who has not encountered Mr. Barnett's work before may at first feel some disorientation, even shock, at the style and emotional intensity of this award-winning movie. The realization may grow, moving into it minute by minute, that what Barnett has done in his own artistic venue is in many ways comparable to what Vincent did in his -- transforming the artist's own clear perception of reality and life (in this case, Vincent's) into forms strikingly different from any seen in that venue before. This is not the kind of commercialized, mundanely Hollywood-slick film making that we are used to, which I find so often boring, in the end. I'd say to those who would be disappointed by that: look elsewhere.
Having had the pleasure of seeing some of Barnett's early work in NY on stage -- Miller and Shakespeare at their best, in my book -- I did not require a period of readjustment of expectation and perception. (At age 33, he did the best King Lear I have ever seen.) What challenged me, in a very positive way, was the complexity and nuance of compressing Vincent's life story, spirit, and values into the remarkably short format of a 111-minute run time. Having known Vincent's story as of decades ago, but not having read the letters of Vincent and Theo, I found it difficult to approach this work with a pristine eye or ear. Would the naive viewer quite understand the context of this or that event (say, the Borinage time), etc? And would the unavoidable constraints of a low budget production detract from the essential experience and value of the work? Impossible for me to know, and anyway, I'm no film critic.
I can say that I have it on good authority that the script remains true to the van Gogh letters, and the portrayal certainly remains uniquely true to Vincent's spirit and work. As film making (his first feature work), it uses the full palette, visually and emotionally. My advice: do not view it casually. That would be a waste.
Nota Bene: Roy Thinnes is so very Peyron. (I really enjoyed his role in X Files, too.) All said and done -- 9 stars. It will sadden me if we don't see more of Barnett on film, as it does that we don't have some earlier work on film.
