ThrillMessage There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

PiraBit if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

Raymond Sierra The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Candida It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Steven Torrey I enjoyed the movie. Though I would be hard pressed to write a summary of Klimt's life after watching the movie. He is a Viennese artist who painted from Fin de Siècle to just before the end of the Great War. That says a lot to the viewer right there. That an artist is self-centered, self-destructive, self-involved should always be self-evident. That came through clearly in the film. If the multitudinous and pulchritudinous naked women say anything, it should suggest that Klimt is dying at a relatively young age of syphilis. The syphilis may have affected his brain--hence he speaks to people who are not present. (I don't know, by the by, whether Klimt did in fact die afflicted with syphilis; the biggest defect of this approach to film biography is the reliance of the viewer to interpret accurately what is going on. A reliance best not--well, to be relied on.)So the movie presents an impression of the artist being an impression of being an artist. Not especially helpful if you have no idea of what is going on with the artist.Alas, most movies about artists are less than stellar. There are those who hate "Amadeus" or "Immortal Beloved" for the same reasons they hate this move; the technique of the film is nothing more than a celebration of film technique and not an exposition on the artist. Maybe FRIDA was one of the more successful films about an artist and exposition of the artist that does not fall into technique.If you have a need for movies that are linear than you may not like this; if you don't mind the Fellini Saytryricon approach to movies, then this may be the movie for you. And I thought John Malkovich did indeed look like Gustave Klimt. A dead on resemblance.

gradyharp KLIMT:A Viennese Fantasy à la manière de Schnitzler is a controversial film, a montage of the elements of the art world and the sociopsychological tenor of the times of the infamous fin de siècle in Europe, a period greatly influenced by the writings of Sigmund Freud, thee novels and 'performances' of Arthur Schnitzler that focused on the emergence of the new views of sexuality. Being about the rise of sensualism in art and the subsequent Jugenstil (Art Nouveau) and Vienna Secessionist movement, writer director Raúl Ruiz (with aid from Herbert Vesely and Gilbert Adair) has painted a larger than life canvas of this fascinating period in art and in history in general and happens to populate it with significant character from the period. No, the film is not based on hard facts and yes, there are inconsistencies throughout. But that is of less importance than the allure of the period that very successfully comes through this film using the magic of light and the fluidity of the camera. Gustav Klimt (1862 - 1918) was a strange artist, a man who believed in a sensualist artificial religion and an artist who favored erotic imagery in his canvases. He was controversial in his time, yet today his paintings using gold leaf and silver leaf and design patterns of expression that defined Art Nouveau sell for many millions of dollars: his style is still imitated and he is still celebrated as the father of erotic art. The film opens and closes with Klimt (John Malkovich) submerged in healing waters in a rather stark hospital, attended by a nurse and his disciple, the equally sensational Egon Schiele (Nicolai Kinski, keeping his hands in the spread-finger style Schiele painted so often!). From this point bits and pieces of Klimt's bizarre life are explored, at times explained through imaginary conversations with his secretary (Stephen Dillane). His marriage, his 'affair' - or is it simply a manifestation of the influence of a muse? - with Lea de Castro (Saffron Burrows), his self indulgence in all things erotic (he is said to have has many affairs with Viennese women yielding a large number of children who bear his genetic puzzle), and his conflict with the Academy of Art, a sense of disgust with the current oeuvre of painting as sterile, and his prodigious output of paintings and drawing of the female nude - all are depicted with tremendous imagination here. The cinematography is as strange as the story it captures, using falling snowflakes in one scene to suggest the falling pieces of Klimt's gold leaf enhancement of his most famous works in others. The dialogue is at times raw and at other times superficial and the audience is begged to indulge in the fantasy that is being recreated. But the film stands well as an example of an art history period and John Malkovich makes a credible Klimt. This is more a film for art students and art lovers who are eager to explore the beginnings of Art Nouveau than a film for audiences eager for accurate biography. Grady Harp

tedg While the world relaxed and enjoyed itself between wars. When art was a solitary and experimental endeavor. When Europeans rediscovered the power of nature in sex and in some cases the other way around. When lives really could be deep, and debauched and intelligent too, three men came out of Vienna: Freud and Wittgenstein were two of them. There may have not been such a concentration of greatness for many decades before and until the Fasori Gimnázium, also under by then slippery Austrian rule. There's a commonality among those two and Klimt, and even between them and the more cerebral Budapest next generation. Its a matter of passion, sense (in both meanings) and concept curvature. While the two great art nouveau geniuses were wondering about space in Brussels and Barcelona, Klimt worked his space, curvature ans escape from the inside of women. Lots of women. His work is of that type that is immediately attractive, so lots of people decorate with it. A brief familiarity with it breeds confusion, so unless you dig as deeply in viewing as he did in making, it will not connect. As a result, if you are serious about making a film of him, about him, you simply cannot do the normal thing: somehow artificially inducing drama into portraying a few known events. You cannot do what Greenaway did with Rembrandt, simply showing sexual passion and making the film painterly.So along comes Ruiz, who is a strange bird, very much like Klimt. There's no middle familiarity with him. Either you know him deeply, you wrap your life where he has, or you miss the passion. You think him dull. You actually believe that someone would spend this much energy fine tuning the ordinary. Well, the thing about these three men is that they were their own worst critics. They all three created their own new worlds were none was before, worlds so perfect and pure anyone of lesser power would be unable to break them. Then they each turned on their own creation, finding and exploiting the weaknesses of their own creations, selves and now us. The art is not in the man but in how he made himself broken.Look at each of them and see the beauty in partial dismemberment. Ruiz denotes this at the beginning with otherwise inexplicable, powerful amputee sex. As with Ruiz' best work, people act as others, split selves, whores of themselves, auditors and bureaucrats of sex. Love must be dissymmetric. Narrative to have power must be a bit jagged inside, where you want to go.I admit, I think Malkovich was a bad choice. He really can be dull. But he is supposed to stagger through this, finding puddles of warm light, clean frames or open enclosure. The women are the thing, always the thing here and they are drawn well.Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

pablo-salvador Klimt "offers" a complex cinematic vision. It is not the case of an avant-guard film, but rather the result of a very risky cinematic exercise. Some people claim that this film is impossible to understand and therefore impossible to watch. But I wonder WHO could understand Klimt, the painter and the film. To understand is a very easy conception. "Klimt" is a demanding film. A journey to the unknown, or to the mind of the painter. This is not a film about his paintings as such. But there are also great many things to learn about them, if one is observant. The DVD release provides the so called "Director's Cut", which proves to be a much more comprehensive version than the one released on cinemas, which was chopped-up by the producers. Great cinematography by Argentine D.P. Ricardo Aronovich and a fantastic "wieneese" score by Chilean composer Jorge Arriagada.