Klimt (director’s cut)

Ruiz, in an a propos to the film: ‘Above all this film should not be seen as a biography of the painter Gustav Klimt (what these days we call a ‘biopic’). It is indeed a fantasy or, if you prefer, a phantasmagoria, a fresco of real and imaginary characters revolving around a single point of focus: the painter Klimt. You see images in the film as if it were Klimt himself who is seeing them. Or rather who is dreaming them. Because this film will be a daydream: exuberance of colours, distortion of space, extreme complexity of camera movements. It would take too long to explain the processes I intend to use in order to record this era, one of the richest, most contradictory and most disturbing in the history of humanity.’ A virtuoso homage to an artist and his life, the film is set against the rich historical tapestry of the fin de siècle. The plot centres on Klimt’s passion for Lea de Castro, his struggle for artistic freedom, and his life-long but platonic relationship with Emilie Flöge. His close friendship with Egon Schiele forms the narrative voice of the film. Ruiz focuses on Klimt’s eternal search for perfection, eroticism and love, his tireless hunt for a new form of expression, his rejection of the social and artistic zeitgeist, the turbulence of turn-of-the-century Vienna and the demise of an empire.

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