Van Gogh

Pialat might well have been drawn to the story of Van Gogh, having himself abandoned painting for lack of funds and enjoyed grudging recognition as a director. But he looks at Van Gogh without pity, as an artist who owns his character; who is part of and apart from a true and bustling world, recreated by Pialat with casual exactness that tips the brush to Renoir (père and fils); and who is daily involved and occasionally buoyed by people drawn to him in affection and exasperation (a marvelous ensemble cast). In the last two months of his life Van Gogh (Jacques Dutronc) is engaged with the collector Gachet, whose stinginess he repays by sexually liberating his daughter; and with his brother Theo, whose indifference to Vincent's art is awkwardly masked by love. Only after the artist's suicide do we see these days as a winding down, a taking stock, a bringing of joys and resentments to their denouement; then we see quiet irascibility as fearsome weariness.