There was much more to that great Dutch master Vincent van Gogh than sublime art, an absinthe problem and a novel solution to earache. As the truly mindblowing Loving Vincent records, there was the mystery of his untimely death, aged only 37. Did he really shoot himself, or was there another, perhaps more sinister figure on that sunflowery knoll in the summer of 1890?
The brainchild of Polish filmmaker Dorota Kobiela, Loving Vincent is special indeed, not least for being entirely handpainted in the style of van Gogh himself. All 65,000 frames were individually painted and animated by a team of 115 artists. Painstaking doesn’t come close.
As these exclusive stills show, the result is unlike anything you’ve seen before. The story has the live-action cast — including Chris O’Dowd as the artist’s old postman friend Roulin and Douglas Booth as his son Armand (pictured) — reimagining the aftermath of van Gogh’s death as a piece of amateur sleuthing fuelled by clues held in a solitary, unread letter.
Will it piece together van Gogh’s (Robert Gulaczyk) troubled final days? Will it a shine a light on his mysterious suicide? Does it even matter when every frame is this nice to look at?
Loving Vincent is out in the UK on 13 October. Pick up [the new issue of Empire, on sale now](
), for much more on the story behind a film that will make a big impression.