At Eternity's Gate

Julian Schnabel is a painter, and this is a painter's account of another painter. It builds Van Gogh's Arles and Auvers years not as chronology but as a way of seeing: handheld camera, the lower half of the frame sometimes deliberately blurred, because the goal is to imitate a retina rather than a biography. Willem Dafoe was 62 during the shoot, 25 years older than Van Gogh was when he died. That mismatch would sink most biopics; here it works, because the film is about exhaustion rather than youth. Dafoe learned to paint for the part and studied the letters. He took the Volpi Cup at Venice and an Oscar nomination followed. The most contested choice comes at the end. Schnabel adopts the Naifeh and Smith theory that Van Gogh did not fire the gun himself, a reading most scholars reject, and presents it as settled rather than as argument. Who it is for: anyone curious about painting as physical labour. Who it is not for: viewers who want a locked-off camera and a clean timeline. This film withholds both on purpose.