Many artists do not recognize their works until they have passed away.
Just like Van Gogh.
As the absolute "master" of Dutch art, Van Gogh's paintings continue to set records for auction houses, but van Gogh's life is poor.
Without talking about Van Gogh today, let's talk about another dutch female painter of the same period, Helene Schjerfbeck.
Although he lives in the same country as Van Gogh, his fate is different.
Helena: A Life on canvas
Helene
This is a standard literary biographical film that tells the story of the painting life of the Dutch female painter Helena.
As an exhibition of this year's North Film Festival, the evaluation of the film is also polarized, and some people think that this is a very serious and restrained live-action biographical film, showing Helena's brilliant life.
But some people feel that the artistic sense is exaggerated, making the film too bland and sleepy to watch.
To tell the truth, this is indeed a big boring film, suitable for a person to slowly taste in the silent night.
Before becoming famous, artists have to survive a long and difficult lonely life.
Someone held on and met Bole. And most people are still unknown, and finally have no choice but to give up.
Like most painters, Helena fell in love with this way of expressing herself after she began to learn to paint as a child, and she used to shut herself in her room and paint all day.
Years later, paintings filled the whole house, walls, corners, everywhere.
However, Helena's talent has not been recognized in any way, and in that era of patriarchal preference, female painters themselves are easily overlooked, and it is even more difficult to support themselves by painting.
Because she has been painting, Helena has delayed the major events of her life and has been dependent on her mother.
Helena's mother, a very controlling woman, has always disapproved of Helena's paintings and does not stop using all kinds of ugly language to ridicule her.
The mother-daughter relationship is not as beautiful as it seems to outsiders, but Helena has buried all this in her heart and released it to the portraits.
Helena is best at painting portraits, and her characters are always confused and somewhat elusive.
In fact, this also reflects Helena's heart, eager to escape, but not knowing where to go.
Her colors were dull and dull, gloomy and depressed, like the house she could never go out of.
But fate extended an olive branch to her.
A businessman, after hearing about Helena, traveled thousands of miles to Helena's home in the jungle, and when he saw the paintings that had been stacked in the corners as tatters, he couldn't help but be dazzled.
It was a style he had never seen before, containing the inner world of the author, and should be known and understood by the world!
So he waved a big hand and bought all of Helena's paintings.
Note that yes all.
Helena suddenly went from being poor to a "rich woman" who could control money, and she was a little uncomfortable, and once she felt that she would have to stay with these oil pens all her life.
But now, she has more options.
The regret in front of me, only love has not been solved.
At this time, a man named Einar entered Helena's life, Einar actually did not know much about painting, but his gentleness and shyness attracted Helena's attention.
They talked about the world, went to the beach to sketch together, and went to feel the gifts that nature brought them.
Sometimes Helena would ask Einard to be her model and paint portraits of Einal.
In Helena's heart, Einar was the next stage of her life, and the suppressed emotions were finally released.
However, In his heart, Helena did not think so, Helena had given all her love to painting, and it was difficult to distract herself from other things.
It is also because of this estrangement that the two people do not really communicate in the process of communication.
Einard was always talking and refusing to respond, and it was his ambiguity that gave Helena more room for understanding.
Einard was a rough man who knew nothing about art, and in order to make him feel good, Helena paid Einal the money she earned from her exhibitions, hoping that he would go out and walk around and add some world to the world.
Of course she understood that this was an inevitable move for the sake of the future of the two of them, but since Einal's departure, her letters to Einar had been sunk in the sea and there was no longer a reply.
At this time, Helena's mother pushed the atmosphere to the freezing point, and she ridiculed her daughter for raising a white-eyed wolf.
In fact, it is not difficult to understand why Helena's mother always suppressed her daughter, in that era when women were born to marry, Helena was different, she invested all her dreams in art, and did not follow the old path of motherhood.
The combination of an old lady who hates the poor and loves the rich and a daughter who treats money as dung is undoubtedly suffocating.
But the result was also in response to the old lady's conjecture, when Einar finally sent back a letter, but the letter said that he had found a new love outside.
Helena was ruthlessly abandoned, in fact, she and Enal did not say love, cautiously looked up at each other, thought that they had planted the fruit of love in each other's hearts,
But no, it was all just Helena's wishful thinking.
When Einal returns to the village with her fiancée, Helena breaks down, and she begins to doubt the meaning of her years of persistence.
Love is gone, family is gone, nothing is gone.
In fact, Einar is not unaware of Helena's feelings for him, but he can't bear it as a country man.
In the end, Helena took a step back, and she chose to let go.
Perhaps this time the feeling made her realize the essence of real life, and when Helena picked up the paintbrush again, her brush strokes began to change.
Those buyers can't help but wonder after watching Helena's new work,
What changed you?
Helena laughed and said that it was life that changed me and took me out of realism.
Since then, Helena has changed like a person, a change in her state of mind and a qualitative change in her life.
She let go of the relationship, and even though Einar regretted saying that she could quit the marriage and start over with Helena, Helena calmly refused.
Love allowed her to re-examine herself, and it also allowed her to regain the meaning of painting after the downturn.
Helena's paintings were a great success in her later years and were recognized by the world, fortunately not recognized until her death, as Van Gogh did.
But Helena also paid the price, which was that she never married.
She remained friends with Einard and exchanged more than a thousand letters.
Helena's paintings are really distinctive, put a few of her masterpieces.
It is not unusual for an artist to be unmarried for life, but it is not easy to complete this lonely life.
The pace of the whole movie is very slow and slow, like a book, you already know the final ending, but still eager to be able to read every chapter.