At Eternity's Gate

Mankind, nature, eternity. Visually and in terms of screenplay, At Eternity’s Gate is a sensual, wellthought of portrait of an artist experiencing rays of light from the depth of darkness. Schnabel skilfully and clearly expresses the main character’s mental states, whether related to anxiety or poetic dreaming, using the interplay of all basic means of filmmaking at his disposal. An artist who lives only for painting and satisfactorily answers those existential questions, that might interest you in the context of the mysterious historical personality named Van Gogh. All shades of his moods and thought processes are stated or implied in a mosaic with the mature thematic complexity befitting an experienced director. And Willem Dafoe, who showed great dedication and deep understanding of the difficult personality of the main character. Here, even the biggest European stars were content to work for food. At Eternity’s Gate is small film classic. (08.04.2019)

An art-house movie about an artist that at the same time is as accessible to the viewer as possible. Willem Dafoe is great and his transformation into van Gogh is perfect. But his acting performance isn’t the only thing that the director is treating us to because a whole number of equally interesting actors are making an appearance in smaller roles, who are making the movie a lot more interesting. If it weren’t for the art-house nature of the movie that is sometimes very prominent, I would have given it five stars. On the other hand, you cannot say that this piece isn’t eccentric, which makes is all the more original. (16.02.2019)