The best thing one can say about Ruiz's impression of Klimt and his life is that the director is a great copyist. (Or at least his DOP and production designer are.) The images are stunning as they should be, having been composed from the artist's own repertoire of breath-taking women. Unfortunately, there is a lot more between the beautiful pictures, and the best that can be said is we are puzzled by the sliver of Klimt's life -- and loves -- we get a glimpse of. Was he really as disdaining of his Sesessionist artist colleagues as Ruiz wants us to believe?
I saw the English "director's cut" at the Kino in Vienna last week, and most of the audience had the same stunned look on their faces as we left the small theatre. (And I don't think it was because German was their first language and they didn't get the dialog...there wasn't all that much of it worth getting.) "What had we been subjected to?" seemed to be a common thread of the lobby conversation I could pick up.
I could only think how the Austrian culture ministry must be regretting the millions of Euro they contributed to this portrait of what comes across as a thoroughly insufferable national icon. After seeing this film, they are probably thankful that many of the great Klimts in the Belvedere have been packed off to California, and hope the artist himself could reclaim citizenship in that part of the world. Mozart received better treatment at the hands of his cinemascopic biographer than did Klimt.
A great disappointment. Maybe an Austrian filmmaker will get a crack at one of that country's national treasures and do him justice. Talk about cultural appropriation!
I saw the English "director's cut" at the Kino in Vienna last week, and most of the audience had the same stunned look on their faces as we left the small theatre. (And I don't think it was because German was their first language and they didn't get the dialog...there wasn't all that much of it worth getting.) "What had we been subjected to?" seemed to be a common thread of the lobby conversation I could pick up.
I could only think how the Austrian culture ministry must be regretting the millions of Euro they contributed to this portrait of what comes across as a thoroughly insufferable national icon. After seeing this film, they are probably thankful that many of the great Klimts in the Belvedere have been packed off to California, and hope the artist himself could reclaim citizenship in that part of the world. Mozart received better treatment at the hands of his cinemascopic biographer than did Klimt.
A great disappointment. Maybe an Austrian filmmaker will get a crack at one of that country's national treasures and do him justice. Talk about cultural appropriation!