This is surely one of the best movies about art I've ever seen. It manages to surprise on many different levels. It avoids completely biographical approach which is a main starting point for most movies of this kind of subject. Even paintings are very few to be seen. Instead, the movie concentrates on something, which is far more essential - the state of the mind of the artist. I was astonished how close the movie was to the feeling I have got from the paintings by Klimt. It also captures the special a kind of decadent flavor of the end of a historical (Austrian-Hungarian empire) as well as an artistic epoch. But it also captures something, which could be called the inner world of the artist and does it in a convincing and magnificent way. Therefore it far exceeds a mere depiction of the life and art of Gustav Klimt - it's not movie about art but an artwork itself. And it's an artwork which is very close to the artworks by the hero of this movie - dreamy and magical, exuberant and saturated with symbols.
The first time I saw it, it was a sheer pleasure for senses. The music is one of the best movie scores I've ever heard - full of references toward the works by Berg, Mahler and Richard Strauss, which contribute in a hypnotic way to the overall effect of this movie. But because the movie is so rich and full of connotations and details one cannot grasp by first viewing, it made me want to watch it many times more. And if somebody found it boring - sorry, but this says probably more about the viewer than about the movie.
10 out of 10
