Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Recent news round-up, Part 2

Good News
Bad News

Recent news round-up, Part 1

Good News
Bad News

Monday, April 20, 2015

Micro movie review

Woman in Gold The true(ish) story of the recovery of some of the artwork stolen by the Nazis from the family of Maria Altmann, finely played by Helen Mirren. The main item at issue was Gustav Klimt's famous portrait of her aunt, Adele Bloch-Bauer, which by 1998 had become a national treasure of Austria (renaming it "Woman in Gold," thus obscuring its Jewish connection):
I remember the years-long case, though not in any detail. As much as the film is the story of Altmann's restitution battle, it is just as much the story of the revival of her memory of the events in Vienna when the Nazis came in, and her new-found desire to make Austria face up to what it did to its Jewish citizens. The film does have its faults, not the least that the outcome is quite predictable. However, I found it quite absorbing, even knowing the results. Mirren's performance carries the whole thing.

I don't think it is that much of a spoiler to say that Altmann was successful in her fight--in fact, the painting is hanging in a museum five or six hundred feet from where I am sitting right now.