Gauguin in Tahiti

Films about famous painters often romanticise their struggle to stave off poverty and elitist scorn while seeking to realise their vision. But Edouard Deluc's account of Paul Gauguin's first expedition to French Polynesia (1891-93) doesn't just gloss over the artist's flaws, it airbrushes them out of a story that bears little resemblance to reality. Taking inspiration from Gauguin's 1901 memoir Noa Noa, Deluc and his co-scribes depict a sociocultural subversive who needs to escape the stifling conventions of fin-de-siècle Paris in order to free his spirit. The film's production values cannot be faulted and Vincent Cassel capably captures the essence of a soul in creative torment, but this shallow-focus biopic so blithely disregards the deplorable nature of Gauguin's sexual appetites that it becomes increasingly difficult to subscribe to its ideas on organised religion, colonial rule and cultural appropriation. Even more damningly, it fabricates a ménage between Gauguin, his pubescent lover Tehura (Tuhei Adams) and strapping islander Jotepha (Pua-Tai Hikutini). Visually striking it may be, but this is also flagrantly flawed.