This felt very much like a missed opportunity, and was disappointing on both a narrative and visual level. Most of the film consists of back and forth conversational head-shots as the main character goes on a bizarre whodunnit trail regarding Vincent's death which ultimately goes nowhere (spoiler: Vincent dunnit). The dialogue is poor, and it comes across like a mix of an ITV Sunday afternoon detective programme and a montage of video game cutscenes.
The animation itself in these segments is off-putting, as the level of detail given to the actors' rotoscoped faces is too high for you to feel like you are watching anything but filmed footage. The effect comes across as something that could have been more simply achieved by using a snapchat filter, and you can't help feel sorry for the animators who had to paint variations of the same face hundreds of times in order to deliver these dreary scenes. The point of animation and of art is to capture an essence of life, yet the much lauded approach taken in this film is devoid of soul and as such seems a massive waste of effort.
When the film allows for a more imaginative use of the animated painting effect in it's few less presentational and more cerebral moments the whole thing manages to engage much more. These sections typically focus more on Vincent's actual life (which is surely what audiences are interested in, not in conspiracy theories surrounding his death) and are free of the monotonous talking segments. I can't help but feel this would have been a better focus for the film, and that the medium of animation could have been used to explore his psyche in an unusual and interesting manner rather than to deliver a rote story that tells us very little.
The animation itself in these segments is off-putting, as the level of detail given to the actors' rotoscoped faces is too high for you to feel like you are watching anything but filmed footage. The effect comes across as something that could have been more simply achieved by using a snapchat filter, and you can't help feel sorry for the animators who had to paint variations of the same face hundreds of times in order to deliver these dreary scenes. The point of animation and of art is to capture an essence of life, yet the much lauded approach taken in this film is devoid of soul and as such seems a massive waste of effort.
When the film allows for a more imaginative use of the animated painting effect in it's few less presentational and more cerebral moments the whole thing manages to engage much more. These sections typically focus more on Vincent's actual life (which is surely what audiences are interested in, not in conspiracy theories surrounding his death) and are free of the monotonous talking segments. I can't help but feel this would have been a better focus for the film, and that the medium of animation could have been used to explore his psyche in an unusual and interesting manner rather than to deliver a rote story that tells us very little.