VAN GOGH

The life and death of Van Gogh is a subject that has often been covered in the cinema but almost certainly never better than by Maurice Pialat in his extraordinary "Van Gogh" with Jacques Dutronc as the painter and concentrating on the last couple of months of his life. It's a very simple film, very matter-of-fact, with as great an emphasis on Van Gogh's relationship with his doctor and his family and his brother Theo and his wife as on the artist himself. It's also gorgeously photographed by Gilles Henry, Jacques Loiseleux and Emmanuel Machuel with images worthy of any film about any great artist while Dutronc is superb in the title role but then the whole cast is superb with Alexandra London and Corinne Bourdon particularly brilliant as the doctor's daughter who falls for the artist and Theo's wife respectively. Arguably Pialat's masterpiece.