Loving Vincent writer-directors DK Welchman and Hugh Welchman expand the scope of their oil-painted rotoscoping with their second hand-painted animation, an adaptation of Polish author Władysław Reymont’s early 20th century novel of rural life. There’s a temptation to obsess over the film’s wild logistics – live-action footage was captured on set and then painted over in a more realist style than their 2017 van Gogh animation – but they never fully capitalise on the opportunities unique to this format. The effect is of gazing into a book as though it were a living painting is novel – for a time at least. But once that effect wears off, The Peasants can feel flat.
Observing a village and its traditions over four seasons, The Peasants is full of fascinating anthropological details. Communal traditions, like harvest celebrations and weddings, backdrop the film’s conflicts. This rural world is captured through the eyes of Jagna, a 19-year-old unwillingly sold off by her parents for marriage to Maciej (the main character in the novel), a much older, wealthy farmer who is in the midst of a land dispute.
It’s an animation that feels like a live-action film in disguise
It’s fertile ground for storytelling but the animation doesn’t nurture it – beneath the paint, the framing and camerawork is lethargic and rote. The method flattens scenes in a manner that feels limiting, mostly adhering to rigid realism and the visual language of live-action filmmaking. Style doesn’t necessarily have to justify itself, but with the painstaking labour that went into animating The Peasants, it’s disappointing that the malleability of animation isn’t exploited further.
Just as those thoughts creep in, though, there are some lovely experimental moments. The seasons change via expressive sequences where the land shifts like fluid. Jagna’s struggle with patriarchal tradition is fascinating too, with added intrigue around the village’s growing sense of outrage as the wealthy gentry attempt to annex its land. But the storytelling is sparse, and with little invention in its visual craft, the film can feel empty.
Where Loving Vincent imagined the great artist’s world in the style of his paintings, The Peasants lacks that same clear purpose. Instead, it’s an animation that feels like a live-action film in disguise.
In UK cinemas Dec 8.
