ThedevilChoose When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Humbersi The first must-see film of the year.

Hayden Kane There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Zandra The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

neulinguistics It's amazing how this poorly done movie still got published.Whoever was in charge for making this film didn't take a moment and think that the film was terrible. Was this film a school project for a drama class? Gustav Klimt was progressive. The movie was regressive.When I looked at the credits, Raoul Ruiz was mentioned. He died in 2011, so whatever anyone says about him is not fair. He is dead and cannot defend himself.When I looked again at the credits, various countries were listed that are responsible for this film. Austria was one of them. Any film that was done with Austria's help takes us back to the 19th Century with respect to movie-making techniques and technology.People in Austria---please stay away from producing any movies. They are just awful.

Steven Torrey I enjoyed the movie. Though I would be hard pressed to write a summary of Klimt's life after watching the movie. He is a Viennese artist who painted from Fin de Siècle to just before the end of the Great War. That says a lot to the viewer right there. That an artist is self-centered, self-destructive, self-involved should always be self-evident. That came through clearly in the film. If the multitudinous and pulchritudinous naked women say anything, it should suggest that Klimt is dying at a relatively young age of syphilis. The syphilis may have affected his brain--hence he speaks to people who are not present. (I don't know, by the by, whether Klimt did in fact die afflicted with syphilis; the biggest defect of this approach to film biography is the reliance of the viewer to interpret accurately what is going on. A reliance best not--well, to be relied on.)So the movie presents an impression of the artist being an impression of being an artist. Not especially helpful if you have no idea of what is going on with the artist.Alas, most movies about artists are less than stellar. There are those who hate "Amadeus" or "Immortal Beloved" for the same reasons they hate this move; the technique of the film is nothing more than a celebration of film technique and not an exposition on the artist. Maybe FRIDA was one of the more successful films about an artist and exposition of the artist that does not fall into technique.If you have a need for movies that are linear than you may not like this; if you don't mind the Fellini Saytryricon approach to movies, then this may be the movie for you. And I thought John Malkovich did indeed look like Gustave Klimt. A dead on resemblance.

dromasca Gustav Klimt was a fascinating character. At a time when all modern art was going through one of the greatest transformations in history Klimt was slightly dislocated, or better said located at the wrong place. The elegant city of Vienna was living its last decades as the capital of the Austro-Hungarian empire, and as much as it has been a center of music and refinement for the previous 150 years, it never was the home of great creation in plastic arts. The revolution was taking place in Paris, with strong resonance in the Netherlands, in Germany and even in Scandinavia. Vienna was adopting a more refined and processed version of the revolution and the art created here was still more targeting to please rather than scandalize les bourgeois.It is not very clear to me what director Raul Ruiz intended to show in this film. It does not seem to be about the artist Klimt, as we get very little feeling about what his art was about, where it came from, how it related to his character or with his environment. We are not even very clear about the character Klimt - we see him involved with a lot of women, trying to be a charmer just to fall under the charms (and mirror games) of the wrong woman (or maybe more than one). We get a mosaic image of the Vienna and Paris before the war, seen from the perspective of the dying Klimt and of his friend Schiele (Nikolai Kimski is excellent) - but overall the exercise seems to be pretentious and empty of content.Or maybe it was about giving John Malkovich the opportunity to make another great role. He did not need it, and actually for the first time I felt the great actor to be a little bit tired. It was more 20 years after playing another big Austrian artist, and the reason was not only the age.

Devon H I am a very generous person when it comes to criticism. But seriously... I expected to learn something about this man and walked away confused and emotionally dead...actually, quite frustrated. Perhaps I'm spoiled by films that have a plot and films that clearly let you know why a character is doing something. I had no idea why Klimt was doing ANYTHING. What did he want? Who did he want? I understand very, very little about this man and what he cared about and what motivated him. Every female character looked too much like the other, I couldn't even tell who the object of his desires was! I'm actually considering another 20 minute bike ride in the past-midnight Tokyo winter to rent another film just to leave myself satisfied...Jeez...