S1 • E2 Mar 18, 2013 45m
8.0
Paris and Holland, 1959: painter van Gogh's sole heir's sole heir, civil engineer Vincent Willem, wants to sell his vast collection of paintings and drawings to invest in the French super-fast train (TGV). The process stirs memories of the artist, who was fired after ten years trying to work for a major Brussels art gallery, but lacks his brother Theo's commercial feeling. Vincent decides to become a reverend, like their father, but abandons the theological seminar within a year to become a lay preacher in the Walloon Borinage coal mines, only to be fired for putting empathy over spiritual guidance. Destitute and disillusioned, he joins Theo's new Paris art firm, only to be rejected as naive. Even Theo turns away after Vincent takes in a pregnant prostitute and her offspring.
