Another very good one from Carlsen

Donald Sutherland is good but wrong for the part of Gauguin.
His presence visually works but emotionally doesn’t convey what Maugham saw so well in The Moon and Sixpence; and Maugham was one of the most astute chroniclers of character in the history of the written word.
In going for the physical with D. Sutherland there is an overbearing nature to the perf that prevents one from getting past the performance and into the story, the arc, and especially the person he is playing. That said Sutherland did a splendid job, he did what one could assume he was asked to do. His line readings, as always, are fantastic.

Max von Sydow as Strindberg is really good. Von Sydow doesn’t play the man as an formed exterior of what you would expect from a “great man”, but as a loose mind, but Sydow has never disappointed with his choices as an actor.

Another thing:
Jean-Claude Carrière, who is credited with the scenario, not the script; I would have liked to see what he could so with the story. Did he give up? What was his role? Many of his works, scripts, have been attacked by the money men. That would be interesting to find out. He worked with Luis Buñuel and I could see him illuminating more of the interior of Gauguin in the unique way cinematically that Gauguin was visual.

Still, Henning Carlsen’s film, director of the great film Sult, is very good.
Worth a view, for sure!