Hey folks, Harry here with what seems to be our last report from the wonderful Elaine from this year's Rotterdam International Film Festival. Here she's covering a John Malkovich film, "KLIMT" which unfortunately isn't getting a particularly enthused review from Elaine. Seems the film just seemed to play without ever really engaging the audience. A shame. Here ya go, and let's all thank Elaine for another wonderful year of reports from beautiful Rotterdam!
35TH ROTTERDAM INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
As I write this, the festival is over, and I'm
struggling to return to normal life, where rather a
lot of work awaits me. It's been a fun festival, with
some very pleasant surprises in the last few days,
including two of my three favourite films of the fest.
I'll tell you about those tomorrow, in my wrap-up
article of the 35th edition of the RIFF. First,
however, I'd like to get one older review out of the
way -- that of the John Malkovich vehicle "Klimt",
which got its world première in Rotterdam.
I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say "Klimt" was
one of the most highly anticipated films at the
festival. As it happens, it was also one of the
greatest disappointments of the festival, and not just
to myself. As the responses I heard after my screening
attest.
You see, just before my industry screening of "Klimt"
began, a festival programmer came on stage to inform
us that contrary to what our schedules said, the
version of the film we were about to see was not the
director's cut, but rather the theatrical cut which
will be hitting the festival circuit soon. The
director's cut, we were told, would be screened the
next day; if we were so inclined, we could come back
and compare the two versions. At this point, lots of
people in the audience nodded enthusiastically,
because what can be more fun for a reviewer than
comparing two different versions of the same film, eh?
And then "Klimt" began, and it was such a snooze fest
that quite a few people left the auditorium within the
first half hour and many others either allowed
themselves to doze off or assumed positions of great
boredom, thus turning "Klimt" into one of those
screenings where it's more fun to watch the audience
than to watch the screen. After the screening, I
overheard several viewers saying they'd never come
within a mile of an even longer version of the film if
they could help it, or something to that effect. I
wholeheartedly agreed with them.
So much for a successful world première, then.
Since that screening, I've heard that the director's
cut (which is what paying audiences got to see in
Rotterdam) is in fact a lot better than the theatrical
cut, which probably explains why the film didn't score
too badly in the Audience Award poll. However, I have
still to meet anyone who actually called either
version of the film good, and since I suspect few
people will ever get to see the director's cut,
anyway, my review will be of the only version I saw:
the theatrical cut. Enjoy.
KLIMT
(Written and directed by Raul Ruiz)
If there's one thing I learnt at this year's RIFF, it
is that films need to have a powerful narrative if I'm
to like them. It doesn't necessarily have to be a
linear narrative (I quite like non-linear films), but
there has to be some sort of plot or storyline, or at
the very least a beginning and an end. Which is
probably why I disliked "Klimt" so much. The film
doesn't really have a story, linear or otherwise. I'm
not even sure it has a beginning and an end. It just
babbles on for two hours, leaving the viewer to wonder
whether it's actually going anywhere, and whether it
has even the hint of a point. To which the answer
would seem to be: no, it isn't, and no, it doesn't.
It's a pointless film, a waste of all the talent
involved. Granted, it has a few mildly interesting
scenes, but they're surrounded by so much dreariness
that they soon sink away into nothingness. Which can't
have been Raul Ruiz' intention, no matter how much the
man likes pretentious, pointless films.
Perhaps it helps if one goes into the film with the
right expectations. Perhaps it helps if one knows that
"Klimt" is NOT a biopic -- a film detailing how the
Viennese fin-de-siècle artist came to create his most
famous works, and how much of a stir they caused, both
in Austria and abroad. If one goes in expecting a
weird, episodic phantasmagoria which doesn't actually
tell one anything about the artist or the fascinating
time in which he lived, perhaps one won't be quite so
disappointed with the film. I doubt it, though, as
"Klimt" not only lacks a clear storyline, but also
scenes of great merit in themselves.
"Klimt" is a dream -- the kind of feverish dream the
syphilitic Klimt himself might have had in the days
before his demise. And like real dreams, it doesn't
make sense. It's not a story as such; rather it's a
collage of delirious scenes in which real, documented
events and people in Klimt's life are juxtaposed with
completely invented and occasionally imaginary ones,
presented in a kaleidoscopic way which offers little
to go on as to what happens when, what is a real
memory and what is completely imaginary. And while
such a trippy approach has been known to yield
spectacular results, Ruiz (best known for his 1999
Proust adaptation "Le temps retrouvé" (Time Regained))
completely fails to pull it off. His is not a film
that sucks one into the dream and makes one part of
it; it isn't nearly engaging, compelling or hypnotic
enough for that. Rather the lack of narrative
coherence is likely to bore people to death, or at the
very least leave them completely indifferent.
Not an awful lot happens in the film. Against the
backdrop of World War I and the end of the Habsburg
Empire (which gets very short shrift in the film --
much more could have been made of that), Gustav Klimt
(John Malkovich) is seen struggling with the women in
his life, who remain vague, unexplained presences. He
is also shown struggling with officials who are not
sure what to make of the nudes in his art. Not that
there is much art in the film, nude or otherwise;
those who watch "Klimt" expecting a view of a painter
at work will be sorely disappointed. Neither Klimt nor
his young colleague Egon Schiele (Nikolai Kinski, son
of Klaus) spends much time painting in the film.
Instead, they (and others) talk about art, in that
dull, pseudo-philosophical, lecture-like way which is
a hallmark of French cinema. I'm sure there are people
out there who enjoy that kind of discourse, but
personally, I'd rather have seen a bit more actual
art, or the making thereof. It's the least you can
expect in a film about an artist, right? Even if it
does not set out to be a straightforward biopic.
Things are livened up a bit when Klimt develops a
passion for Lea de Castro, a beautiful young woman
(played by Saffron Burrows) who appears to have at
least one doppelganger and who likes to play strange
games. There's a hint she's actually working for a
duke who gets his kicks by manipulating people, and
this is where the story (or sad excuse for it) gets
weird. You see, there's a good chance that this
subplot is in fact nothing but a fantasy of Klimt's,
and the problem is, it feels that way. It feels fake.
It feels like a plot element nicked from a bad movie,
and since a large chunk of the film revolves about it,
a large chunk of the film consequently feels like a
bad movie. Add a large number of flashbacks and
flashforwards and vaguely unrealistic scenes which may
or may not be dreams/fantasies/hallucinations of a
delirious mind and you have a very unfocused movie
consisting entirely of loose episodes, none of which
are properly worked out or put into a context. As I
said, some of the episodes (such as the appearance of
the father of cinema, Georges Méliès, with an early
film ostensibly featuring Klimt himself, and the scene
in which Klimt and Schiele work on a sketch together,
each finishing the other's strokes) are mildly
interesting in their own right, but the lack of
context renders them rather limp.
It's a pity "Klimt" is so terribly unengaging, as the
production had a lot going for it. For once,
low-budget director Ruiz got to work with a big
budget, and in some respects, it shows. The film looks
almost as ornamental as Klimt's own works.
Fin-de-siècle Vienna has been reproduced beautifully,
with appealing period costumes, hairdos and moustaches
and stylish, atmospheric locations. Sadly, nothing
much is made of these period details, nor of the great
political dramas which were going on during the last
years of Klimt's life. As a portrait of an era,
"Klimt" is almost as disappointing as it is as a
biopic. Nor does the acting do justice to the great
sets and Director of Photography Ricardo Aronovich's
good work. Many actors turn in lacklustre
performances, sounding not so much turn-of-the-century
as, well, wooden. As for the man who plays Klimt
himself, John Malkovich, he is, in my opinion,
miscast. Right from the start of the film, Malkovich
stands out in a bad way because of his accent. Whereas
nearly all the other actors attempt some form of
"period voice" and German accent (which, quite
frankly, I could do without, but hey, if there has to
be a German accent, at least give all the
German/Austrian characters one), Malkovich sounds and
acts like the late-twentieth-century American actor he
so essentially is. Personally, I didn't buy him as
Gustav Klimt for one minute. All I saw whenever Klimt
appeared on screen was John Malkovich playing a
larger-than-life version of himself, which was fun in
"Being John Malkovich", but isn't quite what one wants
when watching a period film.
I suppose there will be a market for "Klimt". I
suspect the same people who called Alexander Sokurov's
"Russian Ark" (2002) a masterpiece will be impressed
with this, too. It's a similar film in that it has a
similar rhythm, a similar sense of opulence and
degeneration, a similar episodic structure, a similar
ambitious but not quite successful premise and a
similar reliance on long, lecture-like monologues.
Unfortunately, like "Russian Ark", the film is
interesting in theory, but rather unengaging in
practice.
Klimt deserved better than this.
Elaine
