It’s a late October Sunday evening in New York City and it’s raining cats and dogs. We’re on a short drift; in today, out tomorrow. But such is the magic of this city that the wildest adventure can occur in the shortest time. For all our passion for the outdoors and the wild, New York is our mermaid and she lures us in frequently.

Tonight, dark has fallen quickly, our soul is weary and happily melancholic. That’s why of the unlimited number of pleasures Manhattan has to offer, even though we do love the bright and lively, we will seek the soft and intimate. A movie… Action, thrillers and super heroes are on the marquee of mega multiplex with their football field sized screens and their hard-rock-stadium-concert sound… Neither match our vibe. What we need is an indie in a small theatre, with wood panels and red velvet cushioned seats…

We are staying close from the Columbus circle which means we are literally three blocks away from the Lincoln Plaza Cinema… We heard it is Woody Allen’s favorite theater in the city… There are five movies currently playing: The Meyerowitz stories with Dustin Hoffman, Ben Stiller and Adam Sandler; Wonderstruck by Todd Haynes with Julianne Moore, 1945 a post WWII drama; Last Flag Flying with Breaking Bad’s Brian Cranston, Steve Carell and Laurence Fishburne; and Loving Vincent, an “animation” movie about Van Gogh.

We love Dustin Hoffman and Ben Stiller, but we noticed the movie was playing on Netflix… check. We have developed a pronounced taste for Todd Haynes’s atmosphere especially his 1950s paintings (the brutally honest Far From Heaven and the heart wrenching Carol) so Wonderstruck is a strong candidate. But there is enough melancholy in the rainy setting of the evening and we want to keep it just on the pleasurable side of it, which also eliminates 1945, the story of two orthodox jews returning to their Hungarian village after the war...

This leaves Last Flag Flying and Loving Vincent as contenders. We really like Brian Cranston and Steve Carell, both capable of moving you to tears and making you laugh in the same minute, not to mention Laurence Fishburne, Mr Morpheus himself, always on point and classy. And then of course, there is Van Gogh. Going through the film’s pitch we learn that it is the first of its kind, entirely made of oil paintings and tells the story of the last days of the painter.

In the search of equilibrium on the tipping point between a drifting heart and a laughing soul, that one smooth drift on the tight rope that seems to hang between joy and sorrow, this UAO (Unidentified Art Object) has the right vibe. Besides, the strong wind that sweeps the rain through the streets of New York, brushing the galaxies of lights of the city as fresh paint, make every corner look like one of his paintings. Our choice is made. Movie starts at 5pm, half an hour from now.

We head out, hands deep in our pockets, nose up scratching the sky scrapers, feeling with delight the wind whipping our face with heavy rain drops. People are running from cover to cover to avoid getting too wet, but we enjoy the cold humidity that starts to infiltrate our jeans and the water running down our neck… The lights are beautiful. If only the Dutch master could see the City now… what extraordinary vision would he paint? What time-defying, eye-quake would he give to humanity? We are getting excited and curious… We are almost there… walking the tight-rope… in flow state… sipping delicious amount of sweet melancholia while our heart beats a smiling up-tempo that makes us joyful.

We reach the theater. Underground. Intimate as we wanted… we get our ticket… and we are taken to the line by an old overweight usher, clearly extremely serious about his mission, slaloming through a labyrinth of velvet ropes… It seems both extremely organized and completely insane.

Ten minutes later we are sitting with our popcorn (- almost - our only incorrigible vice) and we wait anxiously. Then suddenly the lights fade out, the curtain in front of the screen opens and the magic begins.

One hour and half later, with sweet and sour tears in our eyes, we re-enter the rainy New York city street that Van Gogh would have painted in all its colorful glory. The film still vibrates in our soul and we can already tell that it will resonate for an eternity within us.

Let’s get done with the technical performance first that is easily graspable in three numbers:

- 6: years to craft this jewel of a film

- 125: painters who’ve produced pieces seen in the film

- 65,000 (that’s right, sixty-five thousand): frames painted for the production

There. But this technical prowess is not where the genius of the film lies.

The deesh dash project is one of storytelling and therefore we love a good story. The story of Loving Vincent is compelling. One year after the death of Vincent Van Gogh, by self-inflicted gunshot, a postmaster from the South of France who had befriended him, asks his son Armand to carry a letter that the painter had written to his brother Theo and that was returned to its sender. The mission seems pointless to the young man but he abides and travels north to the village of Auvers-sur-oise. There he is informed that Van Gogh’s brother died as well and the trail runs cold to find someone to whom to deliver the letter. While there Armand reluctantly engages with the villagers asking about the circumstances of the painter’s death. His early conversations make him question the circumstances that lead to the painter’s death, and he begins to suspect foul play. He soon feels compelled to investigate, and starts asking questions all over the village.

On that premise the directors of the movie Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman, expertly craft a quasi-thriller to lure us into and wondering if Van Gogh was not in fact assassinated… This turns out to be a device only, that grips us and emotionally engages us, but manages to remain in the background while we feel totally immersed in the painter’s vision. The oil painting that were produced for the film where variations on actual pieces of the master, reproducing some of them with enough flexibility to make them look alive. But to deepen the illusion, the whole movie was also shot with real actors, on specially built sets, to create a “live” story board for the artists who painted the frames.

The result is a trip! The line between the psychedelic distorted world of Van Gogh, the animation and reality is constantly going in and out of focus, blurring and swelling, accelerating and slowing down. It feels as though we had been sitting in a museum looking at one of his paintings, while on the purest most powerful weed we’ve ever had, of some outer space strain. Imagine the painting suddenly starting to move and morph, expending and contracting then swallowing you in… you are suddenly in the painter’s brain, his vision, but somehow this has become a tangible reality, an intelligible world even though graphically, you live in this alternate universe… on planet Van Gogh, obeying its weird laws of the physics, with its own starlight… Just to be clear, we had not consumed any marijuana, although we do want to see this amazing film again as soon as we can, and it would probably an extremely interesting experience to do so through the filter of well-chosen and well dosed psychedelics.

But you certainly don’t need anything to be struck by the infinitely poetic beauty of the film. Whether or not you are familiar with the paintings of Van Gogh, whether or not you like painting at all, the story and this unique vision could capture you, hijack your imagination, make your heart swell… this film will make you drift. The painter once said: “one day I would like to show by my work what this nobody, this non-entity, has in his heart”. Now we we’ve seen. And we want more. The idea of a drift arises... Let's go to France.