by Grant Shade
Worth: $14.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Vladimir Burlakov, Vanessa Loibl, Marianne Sägebrecht, Felix Klare, Sidsel Hindhede, Monika Gossmann
Intro:
… daubed with amazingly artistic cinematography …
This German production, directed by TV stalwart Marcus O. Rosenmuller, looks at the life of Expressionist maestro, Wassily Kandinsky, but crucially, via the perspective of his lover and ex-student, Gabriele Münter.
The film starts and ends with her, and Vanessa Loibl gives the character a vivid intensity. We see Münter’s dissatisfaction with the lot of women in turn of the century Munich. She wants to study and practice her art and so is chuffed when she hears of a studio called the Phalanx, where women are allowed to attend. This is where she meets the intense Kandinsky, a lecturer at the college.
After visible romantic tension, a painting excursion to picturesque Kochel brings them together. Post coitus, Kandinsky tells Münter that he wants her to leave the trip early as his wife is coming the next day. Charmer. And so begins their on-again, off-again relationship.
The pair develop their artistic techniques while maintaining this frustrating partnership. There’s an intimation that Kandinsky (Vladimir Burlakov) begrudges Münter’s skill and later, individual success at exhibitions, and this might go some way to explaining his reluctance to commit to marriage.
An important stage in both their lives was the formation of the Blue Rider group (important enough to make the title). Here, they meet the equally talented Franz Marc, who, just quietly, deserves a biopic of his own. The dynamic of these artists shows just how fractious things can get amongst geniuses.
The film is daubed with amazingly artistic cinematography, a given for this kind of film. Namche Okon delivers gorgeous landscapes, specifically around the town of Murnau, where Münter and Kandinsky bought a house (now a museum).
Munter & Kandinsky: The Blue Rider is occasionally slow going and it could have done with a bit more on the Nazi appropriation of ‘degenerate art’ many years after the main events. All in all though, the idea of focusing on Münter as the central protagonist shines a light on women artists of the time and in doing so, offers a fresh viewpoint on the artist biopic sub-genre.
