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Klimt [2007]
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RRP: £19.99
Our Price: £11.98 (subject to change)
Lost Time
Review date: 2008-07-29 Rating: 2 out of 10
I bought this DVD after setting aside the reviews listed here as probably overdone, and after all this should be an 'artistic' film. Well, the other reviewers are correct, this is pretentious rubbish and no excuses that it is an 'art-house' film will disguise the fact. John Malkovich wanders through the film saying and doing little. You will learn nothing of the life of Gustav Klimt. The 'extra' of director Raoul Ruiz explaining his work simply serves to confirm your worst fears; he had no comprehensible plan or story in mind and just doodled from scene to scene. A complete waste of time.
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Reviews
A work of dedication that lacks sufficient structure
Review date: 2008-03-24 Rating: 6 out of 10
The movie is the product of enormous love and dedication on the part of the director, the production team and the actors. It is visually stunning and conjures up the appearance and atmosphere of Vienna at the end of the Nineteenth century with great fidelity. The costume design by Birgit Hutter is wonderful, and Ricardo Aronovich, the Director of Photography, creates a cinematic equivalent of Klimt's swirling, bejewelled paintings.
The acting is convincing but there are discrepancies between the naturalistic style of the British actors like Saffron Burrows and Stephen Dillane, and the more expressionistic theatrical approach of the German, Austrian and other nationalities. John Malkovich's approach is different again, and although he greatly resembles the painter, Gustav Klimt, he does not seem to have effectively integrated himself into the whole. As far as resemblances are concerned, the prize goes to Nikolai Kinski as Egon Schiele, and if the director had decided to go all out for an Expressionist approach like Kinski's, the movie would have been a greater success.
Its main problem, however, is that it lacks dramatic structure. It is dreamlike (and occasionally nightmarish) to a degree, but it remains structurally far too loose for its two-hour length.
However, it is a visual treat and if you like the art of the Vienna Secession, it's well worth viewing.
A misplaced artist
Review date: 2008-01-04 Rating: 10 out of 10
For me, this film expressed perfectly that great artists who are misunderstood and unappreciated by many during their lifetime, will remain so also after their demise. Therefore the only point of making art is its value for the creator itself. Sure, the film mixes dream and reality without any prompting, and is thus somewhat hectic, or neurotic, if you like, but my guess is that this was the actual case with Klimt, too. In total, it is an exciting, a non-Europeanlike nor Hollywoodlike treatment of cinematographic medium by a Chilean director. Thumbs up.
Klimt is a film to avoid unles you hate yourself.
Review date: 2007-12-29 Rating: 2 out of 10
It is a waste of money, a waste of time and a total waste all together.
The director or what ever sick lunatic dreamed up this nightmare of a film, finds it amusing to film great parts of the film as if you were looking at a carrussel, making you feel nauseated.
Besides that you have a great many naked women, but they seem to be put there only to show naked women, hanging in curtain shaped swings or just walking about being as neurotic as the rest of the film.
The story is so thin you don't know if there ever was one.
Go with the Special Edition Digipack instead
Review date: 2007-11-24 Rating: 2 out of 10
This is not the DVD that you want. There is a Special Edition Digipack, which also has features including a Fascinating "Making Of", which shows you the filming of the special Saffron Burrows footage among other things. Go with the film, but get the Digipack release.
Product Details/Specifications
Actor(s):
John Malkovich
Antje Charlotte Sieglin
Veronica Ferres
Stephen Dillane
Saffron Burrows
Creators:
John Malkovich (Primary Contributor)
Antje Charlotte Sieglin (Primary Contributor)
Director(s):
Recording label: Soda Pictures
Manufacturer: Soda Pictures
EAN: 5060103790982
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 1
Format: PAL,
Release date: 2007-12-03
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Audience rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
Region code: 2
Running time: 97 minutes
Theatrical release date: 2007
Language: English (Unknown)
Language: German (Unknown)
Language: English (Original Language)