Münter and Kandinsky - The Blue Rider <img src="https://img.icons8.com/ios-glyphs/20/000000/star--v1.png"/><img src="https://img.icons8.com/ios-glyphs/20/000000/star--v1.png"/><img src="https://img.icons8.com/ios-glyphs/20/000000/star--v1.png"/>

Münter and Kandinsky - The Blue Rider

Artist biopics are few and far between these days. Mr. Turner in 2014 and Daaaaaali! in 2023 come to mind as relatively recent examples, and Van Gogh and Picasso are always popular subjects. This German production, directed by TV stalwart Marcus O. Rosenmüller, 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 some 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 shit can get amongst geniuses.

The film is daubed with amazingly artistic cinematography, probably a given for this kind of film. Namche Okon delivers in some gorgeous landscapes, specifically around the town of Murnau, where Münter and Kandinsky bought a house (now a museum).

It's occasionally slow going and I'd have liked a bit more on the Nazi appropriation of 'degenerate art' many years after the main events. All in all though, the idea of focussing 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.

Münter and Kandinsky - The Blue Rider is screening at the German Film Festival around Australia (in Perth at Palace and Luna cinemas).

See also:

Mike Leigh's Mr. Turner (2014) is a fine film and Peter Webber's Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003) has its moments too.

Comments

It Was Just an Accident

The latest from Iranian director Jafar Panahi is a simple, yet brilliant story of a chance encounter with a bastard from the past that oscillates between revenge and forgiveness. We start on an almost uncomfortably close mid-shot of a man and a woman driving at night. They run over a stray dog and the mother explains to her daughter that it was just an accident, setting the stage for other events that may or may not have been accidental. Panahi fills the frame with his protagonists, faces, mostly in states of distress, to the extent that when the screen opens up to show a man digging a makeshift grave in a long shot with vast, lumpy hills in the distance, it's a massive relief of tension. This man is Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri), who thinks he has stumbled upon Eghbal, (A.K.A. Peg Leg or the Gimp) (Ebrahim Azizi), an Iranian intelligence agent who tortured him years ago. Doubt forces Vahid to enlist other victims to help identify Peg Leg, before any retribution is taken. The film is rid...

David Fincher Top Ten

With Fincher's first feature in 6 years, Mank , due soon, I figured I'd do a top ten of his other films. Conveniently, he's only made ten features, on top of dozens of music 'videos', as well as some TV and a few shorts. But let's focus on the films. 10. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) Where to start? Well, let me say that Benjy is the only Fincher film I hated. Full of heart-felt whimsy attempting depth, it misses just about every mark. This is trite bollocks with very little to raise it, save from the unimpeachable Cate Blanchett. Take her out of it and you're left with a certified steamer. 9. The Game (1997) Not a bad film, and made with some late 90s panache, but it just didn't elevate for me. Not much wrong with the cast, Douglas and Penn are usually watchable at worst. There are the requisite reversals and rug-pulls but maybe that's part of the problem - too much of this malarkey? 8. Alien³ (1992) I don...

The Secret Agent

Brazilian writer/director Kleber Mendonça Filho delivers one of the films of the year with this political thriller that hoovered up awards at Cannes. It stars Wagner Moura as Armando, an ex-academic who lands in Recife during Carnival time in 1977. Once there, he's welcomed into a kind of apartment block commune, filled with other 'refugees' from some tyranny or other. The opening of the film teases the situation, slowly unpicking the threads as we cruise through the northern Brazilian setting. It's extremely confident of keeping details held back, no need to rush the exposition. We're introduced to quite a few characters, on both sides of humanity - helpful matriarchs, corrupt cops, selfless in-laws, scuzzy hitmen, crusading journos, and one Jewish German Holocaust survivor. Yep, there's a lot going on here. Around the end of the first act, we flash-forward to the present to find a couple of researchers going through old cassette tapes of interviews between Arm...

Final Cut

Around 15 minutes into this French remake of a Japanese zombie comedy I found myself wondering if this might be the worst film of the year, and even a bit guilty for suggesting Merv see it with me. Imagine my surprise, dear Viz readers, to be happily proven wrong. This is a great lark. The original, One Cut of the Dead , from 2017, seems to be a virtual template, aside from a few clever story angles that connect the two. In a gory nutshell, it concerns a film crew attempting to make a low-budget zombie film in an abandoned events hall, when a bunch of real zombies begin to queer the pitch. Directed (and adapted) by Michel Hazanavicius, of The Artist fame, this opened the Cannes Film Festival in May 2022. It stars one of my favourite actors, Roman Duris as Remi, the director, and Bérénice Bejo as Nadia, who has a fantastic reason for giving up acting. Their daughter, Romy, is played by the actual director's daughter, Simone Hazanavicius (also step-daughter of Bejo, it's all get...

Wake Up Dead Man

Wake Up Dead Man (without a comma to be seen) is the third Benoit Blanc mystery, written and directed by Rian Johnson. Daniel Craig stars again as the Foghorn Leghorn-twanging detective but he's a touch overshadowed here by the 'supporting' cast, namely Josh O'Connor as young priest, Jud (Judas anyone?) Duplenticy, Josh Brolin as Monsignor Wicks and Glenn Close as church dogsbody Martha. Though it seems O'Connor is the new big thing, especially in indie films, I find him about as engaging as the weekly supermarket trip. In saying that, he's a pretty good foil for the rest of the characters, who have charisma by the bucketload. Blanc only appears around the start of act two, after all the set-up has been dealt with, in a very similar fashion to the previous films, Knives Out and Glass Onion . We gather that somebody has been killed on Good Friday, and the format for this exposition is a letter that Blanc asks Jud to write to him. This works well enough, (Keigo ...

Best of 2025 - End of Year Report

Hi folks. 2025, eh? Bit of a prick, all things considered, but I reckon it was a pretty good year for films. My list was down from last year, I actually went 6 weeks without seeing a single film! Still time to see some great ones though, and here they are, from 10 down to 1. [Click on the titles for links to full reviews] 10. Hard Truths (2024) Mike Leigh is still punching them out, and this scathing drama reunites him with Marianne Jean-Baptiste (from Secrets and Lies ). She stars as a miserable, lonely wife and mother, constantly verballing those around her. Her sister is the only one who can put up with her. A tough watch but utterly engaging and though-provoking. 9. Of Caravan and the Dogs (2024) This was one of a few gems from the Revelation Film Festival in July. It's a documentary about Vladimir Putin's attacks on press freedom in Russia and how media groups tried to handle the situation. It's depressing but also filled with hope that there are still folks fighting...

Upon Open Sky

Upon Open Sky sees a trio of teenagers head north from Mexico City on a mission to find the trucker who caused the accident that killed the father of the two lads. Promising enough premise, unfortunately, this is a slight film, aiming for profundity. It opens with the build up to the accident, somewhere in the dusty Mexican bush, then the crash itself acts as a timeslip point to two years later. Fernando (Máximo Hollander) scours a car scrapyard, looking for something. His younger brother, Salvador (Theo Goldin), who was in the car when their father died, understandably mopes around the house, only rising to perv on their new step-sister, Paula (Federica Garcia) as she changes for bed. When mum and new step-dad announce they're off to Spain for a holiday, Fernando makes plans of his own to find (and maybe kill) the trucker. So off they go to a town on the US border in search of him. Now, this film could have been much better, and I'm kind of at pains to work out why I didn...

Predator: Badlands

So without me really noticing, this franchise has reached NINE films (if you include the two Alien vs Predator crossovers). The last three have been directed (or co-directed) by Dan Trachtenberg, who's also helmed an episode each of the TV shows Black Mirror and The Boys . I've got to say, carry on lad, because this is probably the best Predator film I've seen (let me revisit the Arnie one before I remove that 'probably'). This film starts as a revenge quest that soon morphs into a discourse on dysfunctional families and finding your groove in life. All wrapped up in a gnarly, bloody sci-fi romp. I say blood, in actual fact, none of it is human blood, all characters being either alien or synthetic humanoid. That in itself is one of the film's credits - none of the protagonists are human, and the nominal lead is usually a villain. Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) is from the Yautja race, the original 'ugly mother-fucker' Predator. The preamble n...

Hesitation Wound

This film was shown at the Revelation Film Festival programme launch for 2024. It's a Turkish legal drama that leaves a lot unsaid, unexplained, with plenty of scope for interpretation. Tülin Özen plays Canan, a lawyer tasked with defending a guy on a murder charge, Musa (Ogulcan Arman Uslu). At the same time, she is dealing with the slow demise of her old mother, hospitalised in a coma. The minutiae of life in this small Turkish town is fascinating. There's one simple, prosaic scene where Canan stops by a chemist to buy a razor so Musa can shave for the hearing. The shopkeeper asks what kind, she tells him she doesn't know, he selects for her, then explains that she can't use her debit card for that amount, so she buys some pretzel sticks. Completely normal, yet for some reason, I've remembered this scene weeks later. Maybe it's the unusualness of seeing a Turkish store on screen, but I think the on-point pacing of the film has a lot to do with it. Another odd...

The Quiet Girl

This is a great film, especially in the way that it manages to create something interesting out of a reasonably mundane synopsis. A young girl is sent away to a relative's house for the summer where she is treated better than at home. Sounds like it could have a bit of Rohmer-style youthful awakenings? Or maybe some gritty Loach-ian societal comment? Even perhaps a revenge tinged 'fear the youth' theme? Well, it's none of the above, and more power to its style. The Quiet Girl herself (Cáit) is a newcomer, Catherine Clinch, and she was apparently found via an Irish language school call out. She's incredible - meek, direct, no airs nor graces whatsoever, with a clear-eyed awkwardness. She's almost like a little female Bowie in The Quiet Girl Who Fell to Earth (no, not a film but I thought I'd italicise anyway). There are orbiting performances that complement her perfectly. Carrie Crowley and Andrew Bennet play Eibhlín and Seán Cinnsealach, the couple who tak...

Film Shapes

Search This Blog