BERLIN AND BEYOND Feb. 2018

[Chris Knipp]

DIETER BERNER: DEATH AND THE MAIDEN/EGAN SCHIELE: TOD UND MÄDCHEN (2016)



A beautiful, breezy portrait of the artist

The Egon Shiele of Dieter Berner's new film is a charmer, and the bright eyed, chiseled-featured Noah Saavedra makes that charm convincing. With his long face and windswept hair, he resembles Schiele, but is definitively prettier, and was only 24 when this film was shot. In time-honored style, the film focuses on the last days of the artist during the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918 just toward the end of the First World War, while flashing back to key moments in his adult life. He had achieved notoriety and an international reputation but was only 28. He died only three days after his wife, the bourgeois Edith (Marie Jung), for whom he'd abandoned his longtime mistress Wally (Valerie Pachner). Edith and her sister Adéle (Elisabeth Umlauft) had lived right across the street. But Wally was still around, and Edith's sister. The story the movie has to tell is of an unusual lifestyle and unique talent. Schiele was a protege of the older Gustav Klimt (Cornelius Obonya), and the two were masters of the early twentieth century Viennese style - tortured, shocking, erotic, elegant and stylish work that still looks modern. A main focus is on the artist's proclivity for painting underage women in the nude, including his 13-year-old sister Gerti (Maresi Riegner). It was essential to his convention-defying style, which involved tortured, expressionistic poses, nudity, and blatant sexuality. His always striking images make him one of the major figurative artists of the early twentieth century. It took Berner 18 months to find Saavedra for the lead role, but he shot his film in only 40 days, and it is beautiful and breezy. Here, Schiele's épater les bourgeois is not tortured but fun. Berner doesn't achieve the originality and naturalism of Maurice Pialat's Van Gogh by a long sight, but the good cheer avoids many clichés of the genre, and only the music is occasionally a little annoying.

Egon Schiele and the Death of the Maiden/Egon Schiele: Tod und Mädchen, 110 mins., debuts at the Zurich Film Festival 26 Sept. 2016, opening in Austria 7 Oct. This review was originally published for the film's showing 15 Oct. 2016 at the Mill Valley Film Festival. Now scheduled for Feb. 2018 at Berlin and Beyond, San Francisco. Sun. Feb. 11, 2018 at 8:30 PM at the Castro Theatre, San Francisco, Special Screening - Castro Closing Night Film ; Encore: Mon. Feb. 12, 2018 at 9:45 PM at the Shattuck Cinemas, Berkeley.

Trailer.