Paul Cox undertakes, so to speak, to exhume Vincent van Gogh through his letters to his brother Theo, his artwork, the places on earth he haunted, and some costume-drama re-creations of the period. Fitfully successful though this is, the cinema may not be the happiest medium for it. There is little done here that could not be done as well in a high-quality picture book. And between reading van Gogh's letters to yourself and having John Hurt read them to you -- in an overdramatizing voice that sounds something like a file-on-jail-bars and something like a 78 rpm belch replayed at 33 -- you might well choose the former. But would you ever have thought to make that choice without this movie to propel you? (1988) — Duncan Shepherd