Too many fans seem to be blown away

Sorry, this movie sucks

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Frequently referred to as the most straightforward of Ken Russell's biopics of great composers, MAHLER is nevertheless full of shocking images, awful characters and plenty of grotesque theatrics. In other words, it's never boring. And while it may be tame compared to the prior Tchaikovsky biography THE MUSIC LOVERS and the later LISZTOMAINIA, Russell pulls few punches with this expose of the great Austrian composer. As a train carries Mahler and his neglected wife Alma home, Russell's film unfolds with various vignettes of their life together as well as some hideous recollections from Mahler's childhood. Robert Powell has the title role and while he's excellent, he's not really called on to carry the film himself. As Alma, Georgina Hale is astounding and every inch Powell's match. They make up a great love/hate (mostly hate) relationship. Events from Mahler's life are told with all of Russell's usual debauchery, including a very freaky (and highly anachronistic) run-in with Richard Wagner's loony wife Cosima. It's a real highlight in a film full of bizarre scenes. Look VERY fast for an Oliver Reed cameo.

Like Tchaicovksy before him composer Gustav Mahler gets cuffed about in grand fashion in this bio on his life by Ken Russell. Russell as usual pulls no punches while landing some low blows in this brilliantly sardonic take on the composer conductor's life and career.Gustav Mahler ( Robert Powell ) ill but unaware he' ll be dead within a year rides exhausted aboard a train across the Eurpeon landscape with his wife whose looking to get off at the next stop with a lover. In the depths of despair he reflects upon his past; a brutal father, a brothers suicide, a death of a child infidelity , religious conversion to attain status as well as the immediate problem of holding onto his wife. Such downward spiral tragedy is prime Bergman territory but in the hands of Infant Terrible Russell it is a wild, irreverent , dark humored ride down the tracks accompanied by the composers magnificent writings both skillfully and comically matched to imagery and situation. Cosima Wagner as a Brunhilde Nazi, the impoverished siblings as the Marx Brothers, the sacrilegious conversion rite intermixed with scenes of pastoral beauty that inspired him unfold at a rapid and provocative tempo.Powell is a dead ringer for the composer and he does a commendable job of conveying his ego, cynicism and vulnerability huddled in his exclusive passenger car. It is Russell's jaundice and vivid interpretation though that will leave the viewer mesmerized or revolted. With Ken's films there is no in between.

Ken Russell, even though the eccentric of the 70s and 80s, is quite predictable in his choice of themes. It's either sex or tortured artists (or both: sexually tortured artists). "Mahler", obviously, belongs to the latter category.The movie gives us fragments of Mahler's life, not in any particular chronological order, and mostly in flashbacks, which works okay. I wasn't too thrilled with the choice of actors to play him, though. The kid that portrays him as a youth is an exaggerated version of a nerdy, gifted kid – very typical, given Russell's tendency to go over-the-top with everything. The guy who plays him for the rest of the movie is quite unsympathetic. Fine, maybe Mahler didn't look like Brad Pitt, but do we really have to have this kind of sour face to play him? The charisma of a broken chair. Strangely enough, for the woman playing Mahler's wife Russell didn't cast a dog. The rest of the cast are pretty much dogs. It might seem like a silly aspect to dwell on, but to have this many unappealing cast-members sort of sticks out in quite a bad way. No-one needs a cast of runway models, but come on! The flashbacks are your standard Russell fare; dream-like, abstract sequences with dialog that is never rooted firmly in the ground. These sequences aren't dull, but I doubt they would have worked had he done the movie in the 80s, when the visual quality of nearly all films was bland, to say the least. Not as frantic as some other of his movies, like the extra-manic "Savage Messiah" or "Women In Love", which was a good thing. There is the occasional scene with manic over-acting and people jumping up and down like rubber balls, but far less than in the said films. The good soundtrack helps.

This movie, while beautifully shot, grows completely out of control as is moves along. The once over of Gustav Mahler by Ken Russell falls into the trap that all the other Russell films do--over excess. The shot of Mahler biting into a pig snout is one of the most disgusting and offensive images I have ever seen.