The mark of a good film, for me, is the way I feel when it’s over. If I jump up to brush off the popcorn and pull on my coat, it’s forgettable fare. If I’m still glued to my seat as the final credits roll, it will probably stick with me for quite some time.
Such was the case with Loving Vincent in 2017, a beautiful film about the life and death of Vincent van Gogh. The story, about a man attempting to deliver the artist’s final letter and, in the process, unravelling the mystery around his death, wasn’t what hooked me.
It was the stunning look of the film, which made you feel as though you had tumbled headfirst through the frame of one of Van Gogh’s paintings. First filmed in live action, 125 artists then created oil paintings of each frame of the film (62,000 in total) in Van Gogh’s distinctive style.
Now, the film’s creators (husband and wife team Dorota Kobiela-Welchman and Hugh Welchman) have released The Peasants, another oil-painted masterpiece, this time adapting the Nobel-prize winning novel by Polish writer, Władysław Reymont. Our reviewer, an expert in Polish literature and culture, was pleased to find that the film stayed faithful to its source material – while also bringing fresh readings to a novel that is nearly 120 years old.
This time the visuals are inspired by famous Polish and European painters, including Ferdynand Ruszczyc, Jean-François Millet and........