Monday

Art Of Being Klimt Film

Gustav Klimt was the fin de siècle Austrian artist who founded the school of art known as the Vienna Secession, and shocked the society of his time with his unorthodox, erotic and highly decorative art. He was a womaniser, who fathered up to 40 children before succumbing to syphilis and dying in 1918. Posters of his paintings adorn many a bedroom wall, with the seductive and sensual The Kiss his most famous creation. And that's probably more than you will learn than from watching this slow-moving pretentious tosh, directed by Chilean Raul Ruiz and starring John Malkovich as the bohemian artist. Well-made tosh, yes, with beautiful photography and an authentic-feeling evocation of turn of the century Vienna, but tosh nonetheless. Malkovich is characteristically intense and the rest of the mostly heavily-accented international cast play their parts earnestly, seemingly believing that it all means something. Ruiz says it's less a linear biopic, more a fantasy or "phantasmagoria". Certainly, it's full of mystery. To be fair to Ruiz, he's mixing content with form, trying to evoke the style of the artist's paintings with his storytelling and he does succeed to some extent, although this movie is just a bit too arty and will have very limited appeal. (For full source and article click the Headline). Irish Art