Dir: Mario Andreacchio
Star: Kiefer Sutherland, Nastassja Kinski, Chris Haywood, Alun Armstrong

Biopics of 19th-century painters aren’t my usual fare – but by coincidence, I watched this biography of Paul Gauguin the same week as Desperate Romantics, a British series about the the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, which shared several of the same strengths and weaknesses. Both feature a lead star with baggage: Romantics Aiden Turner was better known to us from Being Human and, now, Poldark, while Kiefer Sutherland… Well, let’s just say, every time Gauguin became upset (and that happened quite a lot), I kept expecting him to yell, “Where’s the bomb?!?” Jack Bauer, you have a lot to answer for.

They play equally fast and loose with facts for the sake of drama – though Romantics was at least up front about it, opening with a disclaimer that the Brotherhood “took imaginative licence in their art. This story, based on their lives and loves, follows in that inventive spirit.” Much the same probably goes here: as ever with films based on actual events, real life is rarely cinematic, and one or the other has to give. For instance, the movie depicts Gauguin in Tahiti largely as “going native”, living in a ramshackle straw hut, fighting poverty and colonialist influences. While perhaps true temporarily, what does Wikipedia say about his life on the Pacific island?

[Gauguin] was to spend the next six years living, for the most part, an apparently comfortable life… During this time he was able to support himself with an increasingly steady stream of sales and the support of friends and well-wishers, though there was a period of time 1898–1899 when he felt compelled to take a desk job in Papeete. He built a spacious reed and thatch house at Punaauia in an affluent area ten miles east of Papeete, settled by wealthy families, in which he installed a large studio, sparing no expense. He maintained a horse and trap, so was in a position to travel daily to Papeete to participate in the social life of the colony should he wish.

But where’s the drama there? Similarly, the relationship with his wife, Mette (Kinski) is altered to fit the demands of the movie. This culminates in a scene, on a return trip to Europe by Gauguin,  where she tells him he needs to go back to Tahiti, and walks away, tears in her eyes – the implication clearly being something along the lines of, “If you love somebody, let them go.” There’s no evidence anything even remotely resembling this touching incident ever took place. Their relationship was certainly strained, more or less from the moment Gauguin gave up his day job as a stockbroker in order to devote himself to art. But by the time the painter made his first journey back, the pair were irreconcilable, and communicated with each other only through a mutual friend.

Another interesting direction is to concentrate on Gauguin’s relationship with Camille Pissarro. While accurate enough – Pissarro was one of Gauguin’s main influences – I’m a bit surprised they didn’t opt for his connection to the much better-known Vincent Van Gogh. Their relationship was close, and had its share of drama; indeed, there have recently even been suggestions Gauguin was the man actually responsible for cutting off Van Gogh’s ear, with a sword and in a drunken rage. But I guess that friendship was perfectly well-covered cinematically already, in Lust For Life, which had Kirk Douglas as Van Gogh, and Anthony Quinn, who won an Oscar for his portrayal of Gauguin. Probably best not to try and compete with that.

The structure is a little odd too, constantly zipping back and forth in time – it begins with his arrival on the beach in Tahiti, then quickly leaps back 17 years, to his life in Paris when he was a well-off art collector, rather than a poor artist. It bounces back and forth repeatedly for the rest of the film, and this seems to serve no particular purpose over a more linear telling: it’s not as if there’s a twist ending or something. On the plus side, the film looks lovely, with Geoffrey Simpson’s cinematography capturing some wonderful Pacific scenery. It’d be a great commercial for the Tahiti Tourist Board, except for the fact that those scenes appear to have been filmed in Queensland, Australia. [And the part of Paris, meanwhile, seems to have been played by the Czech Republic…]

I also liked the film’s depiction of the relationship between Paul and Mette, far more than the sequences after their break-up, which deliver a very tired portrayal of colonialist attitudes and the “noble savages” they oppress. There’s an honest realism in the husband-wife partnership, that rings true. To be honest, I can see Mette’s point: Paul’s decision to throw away a secure job and solid income to pursue his dream of art, is a selfish one because it doesn’t take into account the impact on her and their four children. The film also doesn’t explain why he was unable to paint and be a stockbroker, at least until establishing there was indeed the hoped-for market for Gauguin’s work. But I guess, artists don’t always think things through logically like normal people (see also: Van Gogh, severed ear of).

All told, it’s not a disaster, and Sutherland is probably better than I would have expected in a historical role. Admittedly, this is mostly based off my prejudices regarding him, I think the last period piece in which I saw him was The Three Musketeers. Oh, hang on: I just remembered he was in Pompeii, but we’re likely all be better off if we can forget that one. Kinski, of course, seems like a veteran of a thousand 19th-century dramas, and wears the crinolines as well as you’d expect from a seasoned professional. When it’s Gauguin butting heads with a caricature of a Catholic priest, rather than Mrs. Gauguin, it isn’t as effective, and it’s the script which is clearly the biggest problem here, not the performances or production values.