For example The Theory of Everything, A Beautiful Mind and The Imitation Game I would all group together. The Woman in Gold belongs with The Monuments Men. Similar plot lines and themes.
It's also a bit of a weepy one, but maybe that's just me. It is a genuinely moving film though. I like films that are based on true events and people. Fantasy movies are great for distracting you and gilding your imagination but the ones based on real stories I think are more exciting. You get to see the world through someone else's perspective and come away with a new take on the world and humanity.
The whole film was about this painting. Now known as the "Woman in Gold" by Gustav Klimt.
It's a painting of a woman called Adele Bloch-Bauer, the aunt of the main character in the film Maria Altmann. Adele's husband had commissioned Klimt to take her likeness. Afterward it hung in the home which they all shared Maria's parents and her sister and Adele and her husband.
Adele died before the war and occupation of Austria began. When it came to the occupation Maria was now married to an opera singer Fritz and Adele's husband had left Austria with her sister Louisa to Cologne.
Maria's uncle advised her father to take the rest of them and leave Austria soon but they didn't and soon were put under house arrest in their home. Travelling was denied for the jews and they had to remain in the city.
They did eventually manage to escape though, under the pretence of getting medicine from the pharmacy for her father Maria and Fritz escaped their escort and calling in a favour from a family friend got a lift to the airport where they too made it Colonge. She had had to leave her parents behind though, her father was sick and I think her mother would not want to leave him anyway.
It was a tense getaway scene to the airport. The panic of thinking Fritz got left behind as they were separated for a bit and then the gunshots fired as they were diving into the car made you think he got shot but they managed to get out safely. Tension again as the ticket man at the airport questions them for their lack of luggage before finally letting them on, then again when some police pull up to the delayed flight but luckily (perhaps not the best word, it certainly wasn't lucky for the others) were not there to find Maria and Fritz. They arrive in Cologne and then eventually make it to America and to California.
Flash forward to Los Angeles 1998 and Maria's sister Louisa has died. Looking through her possessions she finds correspondences between her sister and the family lawyer in Vienna. The Austrian government was changing the laws concerning restitution of property taken during world war II and how they were looking at old cases again. Maria wants to know if this means she has a case to have the Klimt painting that belonged to her family restored to her (four others beyond the Woman in Gold) which were taken by the Nazis.
Enter Ryan Reynolds starring as the lawyer on the scene, Randol Schoenberg (grandson of the composer Schoenberg). He builds a case up for her, initially as he later admits after finding out how much the Woman in Gold was worth more than one hundred million dollars. But as they journey to Vienna and he revisits his roots as well as hers it becomes more a case of justice and rectification of the past.
The case went all the way up to the Supreme Court and then a further arbitration in Vienna and the results thankfully were that the paintings should be restored to Maria. Poor Belvedere academy.
I did get that it's the height of Austrian art and it's the Mona Lisa of Austria and they didn't want it to be removed from the motherland. However it was never made to be a public piece of art. It was commissioned privately and belonged to that family.
Rather nicely though Maria did sell it to the Neue Galerie in New York with the proviso that it be on display in perpetuo which I think is rather nice.
I think this is one of the most human moments in the film. The heartache and confusion at wanting so badly to have what was lost but not the pain that comes with it. Maria's wish that she could enjoy being in Austria but only being able to remember the ill that happened there and the continual reminder that this was where she had left her parents before escaping to America without them.
This film is about justice and the blessings of enduring.
It's also pretty good on demonstrating how differently we all see things. The painting for the Austrian Belvedere, I imagine, was a great piece of their heritage and culture and indeed the Mona Lisa of Austria but I also have no doubt that its monetary value played a huge part in their wanting it to stay with them.
For the lawyer Schoenberg it began as a painting worth millions, a case that would set up his career but became a reminder of his ancestry and his history and the sentimental value objects can hold.
The painting to Maria was a like a family photograph, we all see a woman, literally nameless "Woman in Gold" but when she looked at it she saw her aunt. A woman she had grown up with and loved and shared memories with.
Interesting fact: when the art gallery installed the painting they named it "Woman in Gold" because they didn't want the Jewish associations that came with the name Adele Bloch-Bauer.
When we were waiting for the movie to start Louisa was telling me a bit about Klimt (she studied him at GCSE art and her main piece was based on his Woman in Gold). Anyway she told me her favourite piece was called "The Kiss". I thought she meant the picture I have on my phone case, the one I saw in Italy as that's called "Il Bacio" the kiss. But no she meant the one by Klimt not Hayez.
She found a picture and showed me and they are pretty similar. Ignoring the glaringly obvious difference in art styles they both feature a kissing couple in the same pose and stance. A little digging found out that Klimt probably based his upon Hayez's earlier work and even other examples by different artists.
Quite cool that our favourite paintings are linked and one inspired the other. To add more, the sisters in this movie were called Maria and Louisa. Quite a funny afternoon.
