Review of Klimt

Raul Ruiz's excessively expressionistic film just winds up a jumbled mess

by Zachary Wigon 

It’s hardly original to point out that, in works of art, the division between form and content is a porous one. There are numerous films – many of them excellent – wherein the style and formal choices made exert a strong influence on how the narrative, characters and ideas in the film are received. Likewise, for a film’s subject matter to influence the aesthetic choices a director makes is hardly uncommon. However, there is something to be said for tact. Tactfulness is not something that is regularly defended in the pages of independent film review blogs these days – or at any time in their history, for that matter – but the argument for tact and restraint will go as such: to have one element in a film’s narrative that is excessive does not justify an unlimited amount of stylistic excess. Raoul Ruiz, the director of Klimt, would have done well to heed such a warning. On paper, one could see the concept attracting the attention of naïve aesthetes in the film world – “see, we’re going to make a film about Gustav Klimt. Our film is going to be as formally excessive and aesthetically experimental as Klimt’s own paintings were! A perfect mirroring of style!” The problem with such an approach – which is the approach that Ruiz took to his biopic of the ultra-famous Austrian painter – is that the excessive formal experimentation is ultimately unmotivated by anything in the film itself. If the formal experimentation was excessively gorgeous, perhaps Ruiz could get away with it on an “art for art’s sake” basis – but it is not gorgeous. By the end of the opening shot, I was dizzy. The film begins in 1918, as young Egon Schiele (Nikolai Kinski) goes to visit his mentor, Klimt (John Malkovich) in the mental institution he is living in. Klimt seems to be in some sort of vegetative state, which remains unexplained. This setup serves as the narrative launching point for the rest of the film, as we go back in time and review Klimt’s experiences in Vienna and Paris, as the star at the apex of the art scene. In one of the early sequences, Klimt and his contemporaries debate the merits of the current fads in art. As the painters discuss aesthetic experimentation for the sake of beauty, the camera endlessly swirls around the various speakers, in exaggerated movements that seem designed to recreate the feeling of seasickness. Are they on a boat? No, they are in a coffeehouse in Vienna (could art be discussed anywhere else?). “Nothing is vile,” one of the artists at their table remarks, as the camera moves violently around him. “It just depends on the era.” I can’t imagine during which era Ruiz’s photography would be received as anything other than vile, but be sure not to book me a ticket to it. Before the end of the scene, cake has been smeared on a critic’s face, and Gustav has broken a mirror. The year is 1900. As the film progresses, we are shown Klimt’s trips to Paris for the Salon, where he wins the Gold Medal, his encounters with George Melies (Gunther Gillian) and Lea de Castro (Saffron Burrows), a model who Klimt falls in love with. However, it becomes apparent that Lea is not all that she seems – indeed, it becomes impossible for Klimt to tell who Lea is, and whether or not she is being paid to indulge Klimt’s desire for her. Back in Vienna, Klimt’s popularity is declining, and the Prime Minister is somewhat dismissive at one of his openings. Afterwards, they go to a whorehouse together and argue about aesthetics in a cage while wearing gorilla masks. One would hope that a biopic such as this could be at least moderately carried by an actor with as much talent as John Malkovich. Sadly, that is not the case, as Malkovich’s performance feels like autopilot for the majority of the film. Klimt is an extreme man, as portrayed here, and yet his extremes have all the unpredictability of a shoebox. The notes he hits as Klimt are lacking in individuality, and the result is not so much a character as it is a series of tantrums-as-set-pieces. Throughout the film, little interest is roused in Klimt’s career as an artist, and this is problematic, as Klimt’s decrease in popularity is given major narrative importance. Ruiz does manage to have one beautiful sequence. It occurs towards the end of the film, where Klimt appears inside his home, only now it is empty of his belongings. Lea is there, and it begins to snow inside the house. It makes for the type of moment the film has been striving for throughout, but failing to reach. Finally, Ruiz has arrived there. Sadly, I could only partially concentrate on the shot, as I was instantly reminded of how Alain Resnais did almost the same exact thing in last year’s Private Fears In Public Places. If there is a lesson to be learned from Klimt, in an Aesop’s Fables kind of way, it’s that a film with a character known for his aesthetic excesses does not automatically justify all kinds of aesthetic excess on behalf of the filmmaker. Aesthetic experimentation, when done properly, is one of the most sublime traits of good cinema – but it is something that must be earned. Klimt ultimately stands as an example of an unearned indulgence.

Posted on 01/29/08 by: FC Scribes 06:26 PM