Bride of the Wind (2001)

User Rating:

5.6/10   

Director:

Bruce Beresford

Writer:

Marilyn Levy (writer)

Release Date:

4 January 2002 (South Africa)

Genre:

Biography | Drama | Music

Plot:

This movie is a biopic of Alma Mahler, the wife of composer Gustav Mahler (as well as Walter Gropius and Franz Werfel), and the mistress of Oskar Kokoschka.

Plot Keywords:

Composer | 1800s | Art | Artist | Independent Film

Cast

Sarah Wynter	...	Alma Mahler
Jonathan Pryce	...	Gustav Mahler
Vincent Perez	...	Oskar Kokoschka
Simon Verhoeven	...	Walter Gropius
Gregor Seberg	...	Franz Werfel
Dagmar Schwarz	...	Anna Moll
Wolfgang Hübsch	...	Karl Moll
August Schmölzer	...	Gustav Klimt
Marion Rottenhofer	...	Bertha Zuckerland
Sophie Schweighofer	...	Anna Mahler (Age 6)
Johannes Silberschneider	...	Alexander Zemlinsky
Daniela Dadieu	...	Justine Mahler
Brigitte Antonius	...	Frau Kokoschka
Johanna Mertinz	...	Frau Gropius
Erwin Ebenbauer	...	Dr. Alfred Loos

Also Known As:

Die Windsbraut (Austria)

MPAA:

Rated R for sexuality and nudity.

Runtime:

USA:99 min

Country:

UK | Germany | Austria

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

USA:R | Canada:A (Ontario)

Filming Locations:

Vienna, Austria

Company:

Alma UK Limited

Soundtrack:

Rückert-Lieder: No. 5, Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen

A waste of a fascinating subject

You'd never know from this stifling, woodenly acted, tritely written biopic what an electrifying and singular woman Alma Schindler, by all accounts, really was. As portrayed by Sara Wynter, she's got the allure of a dishrag and may as well have "Serial Victim" stamped across her forehead, her complex life story reduced to a series of oversimplified episodes (Girl Meets Artist, Artist Falls for Girl, Artist Turns Out to Be a Self-Absorbed Jerk, and Girl Meets Another Artist). Not only do you get no sense of what a great composer, architect, sculptor and writer ever saw in her, you don't get much of a sense of what she could have possibly seen in any of them. The movie makes the 22-year-old Alma look either cynically opportunistic or oblivious to find anything attractive about this movie's smug, devitalized old-fogy Gustav Mahler (who could never have written the amazing symphonies the real Mahler composed). Walter Gropius, et al. don't fare much better. Something that looks as though it was made for--and rejected by-- Lifetime Network, despite pretty cinematography, sets and costumes. As a then- member of the Gustav Mahler Society of New York, I attended a free pre-release screening in spring 2001--and still wanted my money back!