Movie Recommendations: Loving Vincent (2017), Joker (2019)

Loving Vincent : The sight, the story, and the sound

Loving Vincent (2017) is a labor of love - how it was done and what it's trying to say. Van Gogh's paintings become the very animation itself in an investigative story about his death, commonly ruled a suicide. But did he really kill himself? 

The first of its kind, the  film made of hand painted oil paintings as panels (853 paintings, 65,000 panels) was done by over 100 artists around the world. Van Gogh's works of the people around him become the characters and the setting, the places he has painted.

And it is through these works that the film tries to unravel the unfortunate circumstances to his death and in effect, the later part of his life. While an artist, through his paintings, shows us how he views his subjects, the film turns it around and shows how Vincent's subjects may have viewed him. 

Music was by none other than Clint Mansell (Requiem for a Dream), with the icing- the song "Vincent" a classic by Don Mclean which you may not listen to the same way again after watching this film.

(Vincent was supposedly Tupac's favorite song and was played on his deathbed)

Joker: What is the joke?

By now widely regarded for Joaqin Phoenix's award winning performance and mined to death by meme makers who put totally unrelated motivational quotes, Joker (2019) is a must see whether you are into super hero films or not.

Still, as a super hero film, it continues the trend of making the villains much much more interesting and well rounded (think Thanos or Killmonger), and the trend of making the hero genre darker or more mature (think Logan, The Boys(TV Series), Dark Knight etc.). Likewise, it does stay faithful to the Batman lore, even showing us for the nth time how Bruce Wayne's parents are gunned down in front of him. 

Beyond that, this is an excellent psychological drama following a sort of "disgruntled citizen" genre and how a man slowly descends into madness or is pushed into it. You watch such films with empathy and pity for the character's sufferings and watch in anticipation and horror when the bomb, their own sanity, are stretched to the limit and explode in the most gruesome or just pathetic ways.

This may be the reason why so many liked the joker and related it to the current issues on mental health and illness. Building on these themes, the film also invites you to come up with more than one possible explanation or "plot twists" as the film ends.  

Regardless, it is an homage to The Taxi Driver starring Rober De Niro who also plays a role in Joker.

However, I saw how it is more like Sean Penn's "Assassination of Richard Nixon"(2004) another film I highly recommend for its stellar acting and its pathos.

I prefer waiting for movies to be available online because I want to be able to rewind or pause. Joker was the first one I watched at a cinema by myself and it may have started an "occasional" solo habit.