At Eternity's Gate - Hated It

Starring: Willem Dafoe, Rupert Friend, Oscar Isaac, Mads Mikkelsen
Director: Julian Schnabel
Runtime: 1 hour, 51 minutes 
Biography | Drama | 2018

Being a biography of Vincent van Gogh, I can see why the director and filmmakers decided to go the route they did. However, it was so utterly boring and uninteresting that it was a hard watch for me. There were times I found myself checking to see how much longer the movie had - it seemed to go on for well over the run time of 1 hour and 51 minutes. I think the thing that made it seem long and not fun to watch was the lack of dialogue. There were many, many scenes where Vincent (Dafoe) is walking in wilderness looking for something to paint while the camera pans in and out and focuses and un-focuses all while you just hear music. Beautiful music yes, but artfully tragic. 

Now, the movie itself was an artistic piece - which brings me back to my original statement with being able to see why the director went this way for the film. Watching Willem Dafoe paint was interesting and learning about how the infamous painter lived during that month was interesting, but it just wasn't watchable like I would have liked. 

There were times where the screen went black and all you could here was Dafoe's monologue - I definitely hated this, because I didn't really see the point. They could have easily done this while displaying the beautiful French countryside. One more thing - the filmography was something I hated as well. It honestly felt like I was shooting a movie with my iPhone, which has a broken camera that can't filter the light well. Watching that on my TV screen was not inviting at all. 

I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to give this one a "hated it." It seems Dafoe comes up out of the blue when it comes to Academy Award nominations in non-normal filmed movies (i.e. Florida Project). I can't deny he's a good actor in this, but the movie itself is just too artistic for my tastes.  (1/5).