This is what a certain Martin Kelly wrote about this film on imdb.com: "I didn't know too much about Gustav Klimt before watching this film and I didn't leave the cinema all that enlightened either. This pretentious and baffling movie informs us of the following: that Klimt painted lots of pictures of naked women, he swore quite a lot, he wasn't religious, he had lots of illegitimate children and his mother and sister were mentally unstable. Fascinating (...) If Klimt's story isn't worth telling, then why bother? And if a film had to be made, couldn't the filmmakers have produced something at the very least coherent? This is the kind of movie which gives biopics a bad name. Definitely one to avoid unless you enjoy being confused and bored". This hilariously obtuse comment must be even more amusing to those familiar with the work of Raoul Ruiz, who directed "Klimt", because compared to the Chilean-born filmmaker's other cinematic accomplishments (such as "Le Temps retrouvé" or "Trois vies et une seule mort"), "Klimt" is a remarkable example of complete clarity, perfect coherence, edge-of-your-seat excitement and utter lack of pretensions. The film stars John Malkovich as the famous Austrian painter whose lavish, sexual masterpieces came to symbolize the Art Nouveau style (or "Secession") of the early 20th century. Saffron Burrows, Georgia Reeve, Julie Brauning, Ariella Hirshfeld and Verena Mundhenke make memorable appearances as his muses and models. As Martin Kelly correctly points out, Klimt's life was hardly dramatic in itself. But Raoul Ruiz actually manages to squeeze every ounce of drama out of his otherwise uneventful life story. It's far from a perfect movie, but it's as good (or better) as its subject matter allows it to be.
