NekoHomey Purely Joyful Movie!

Onlinewsma Absolutely Brilliant!

Kaelan Mccaffrey Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Philippa All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU Welcome to the life of Alma Mahler, literally enslaved by Gustav Mahler who did not realize it, but Alma could not cope with it, just submit and suffer. Then she had a passion for Walter Gropius with whom she will eventually marry but the passion will vanish as soon as the wedding will be consumed, or nearly. She will have some liaison with Oskar Kokoschka, before and after Gropius, but that will only lead to drama, even melodrama. Finally she will fall for Franz Werfel who did not come out of the drabness of the setting too much and more or less kept up with appearances. Alma Mahler may have had some potential but we will never know. She never really performed as a performer, a pianist it could have been, and it is not some seven or so songs published quite later that can tell us what she could have done in music if she had not been stifled by the fame of her husband and then the grandiose vision of her next two men. But the film does not show well enough how she was the real inspirer of Gustav Mahler, the woman who gave him the courage to renege his religion to capture the director's position at the Vienna opera. He will never survive this killing of not only his God, but of God altogether, and when he found out he had killed God he discovered in the wake of this realization that life was dead and that death had invaded life completely and that only the earth was left, the earth on which we tread before being buried in it. Earth the perpetual and eternal shroud. The death of their younger daughter, Maria, was probably the straw that broke the camel's back. He had to accept the call from the earth, from death and go into total darkness now the gate of light that does not cast a shadow was dead, had been killed along with God. That feeling of death, of absolute voidness and vacuum in the world, is so Jewish and yet so beyond Jewishness. That's probably what Alma could not stand up to, the constant contact with death that is so typical of Mahler's music. And now we have re-discovered the music of the Old testament, the Hebraic music codified and organized by King David, we can compare and we can discover its main accents are the same as some of the darkest music pieces Gustav Mahler composed. His wife was just fascinated by this morbidity she felt in the music and could not identify, and that fascination became a sense of duty after she had fallen into the snare and then, when the snare released her, she could never free herself from that call from the bottom of the grave of life itself. This particular film sets the emphasis on the fragile uncertainty of Alma's successive passions that lead to some kind of melodramatic approach and that does not satisfy my real curiosity and consciousness about this world in which Mahler committed the worst crime possible, to kill his own people's God. And God knows history was going to make his people pay for that assassination, which was not only Gustav Mahler's. Maybe it was a crime committed by a whole civilization and imposed in a cathartic way onto the Jews by this civilization turned materialistic.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines

aussiefilmlover I was prepared for an awful movie judging from the reviews and waited until this was on DVD to see it. I wonder if I watched the same film as others.Alma's reasons for cheating and having lovers were very clearly given, she was stifled in her marriage and rather than do nothing she got satisfaction when she wanted it.rather than being some famous groupie, she was the flame and they were the moths. Had it be 100 years latter she would be the famous composer and would have been given the respect that at that time she was only given as a muse.The actress that plays Alma starts off the film well showing some of Alma's passion and intelligence but then seems to give up acting halfway through the film at the very time when in real life Alma was coming into her full power.Jonathan Price is a decent Mahler but the film doesn't show the passion that he had for Alma.Vincent Perez does an excellent job although the characterization of her third husband is far removed from the reality.The movie focus more on the narrative and the atmosphere than on the characterization of Alma who was a talented and intelligent woman who drew people to her with her beauty but also with her intelligence, wit and ability to bring out the talent in people.I wish the film showed more how she was a huge influence on the art and culture of the time. I did love that they played parts of her leiders(poems made into songs).This film is good stimulation for people to learn more about her and I must say the love scenes were very intense and erotic.

Bob Warn (realbobwarn) I believe that this film has had very few cinema releases due to the rotten critiques it received.I saw it at a special screening in Canberra hosted by the director (with witty description of the trials and tribulations involved in its production and non-release). I saw it as an 'OK' biopic and certainly better than so much of the characterless violent drivel served up these days (this of course dates me). I think it deserved more exposure than it got - a worthy entry in the great director's portfolio ..... Remember, the critics usually get it wrong .... and they do not pay to see the films.Vienna is beautiful, Mahler's wife, Alma is a forgotten feminist hero whose story deserves telling.

nbott This film begins with very great promise. The opening credits are very involving. Unfortunately, the script is banal and not very engaging at all. So after the opening credits, it is all downhill. I just do not believe that the romantic liaisons of Alma Mahler were this shallow and trite. We are led to believe that Alma Mahler is nothing but an opportunistic loose woman. We are given no background to understand her actions. With the exception of her relationship with Gustav Mahler, we are not given any information so that we can understand why so many talented men were drawn to her. Perhaps a more formidable actress would have convinced us otherwise. Her relationships with most of these important historical figures are never really fleshed out so that we can become involved and feel something for these characters.The acting by Jonathan Pryce as Mahler is good. Vincent Perez is alluring as Kokoschka. However, the weakest acting is that of Simon Verhoeven as Walter Gropius. Ms. Wynter is obviously an excellent actress but she is destroyed by this awful script and she is not that sexually alluring. The music is, of course, wonderful. It is Mahler for the most part.I was drawn to this film because I wanted to be moved by a chapter in the life of Mahler and to perhaps experience some of the excitement of this period of creative activity in Vienna and Central Europe. The settings are enjoyable but the film is a great disappointment for anyone seeking to know more about the life of Alma Mahler.