Bride of the Wind by Marilyn Levy - Eight out of 10

Bride of the Wind by Marilyn Levy

Eight out of 10

This motion picture is surely not perfect, but it is however next to impossible to understand for yours truly why the critics have destroyed it.

Granted, there seems to be a disharmony, an imbalance which was evident in the other direction recently, when the under signed has considered Crazy Rich Asians a terrible movie (http://realini.blogspot.com/2018/11/crazy-rich-asians-based-on-novel-by.html) while audiences and critics have celebrated it.

I really do not see why The Austin chronicle has given The Bride only two stars out of five and it is especially ghastly to see Roger Ebert rating it with just half a star (?!), when that site is generous with any ludicrous, forgettable piece and then going on to say that “it is one of the worst biopics ever”.

Come on! Give me a break! As they say in the movies favored by this very caustic expert, but only on the matter of The Bride.

Anyway, if I did not love it to despair, I surely liked it very much.

There is an immense regret, for the awful reception of this drama might have compromised the career of the star, Sarah Wynter seems to have been prevented after this film from ever getting the leading part again.

The story of Alma Mahler – who would become Alma Mahler- Gropius later on – is not just compelling, captivating, it is also the narrative of a modern heroine, a woman who has fascinated, intrigued and lived to the full, long before the age of the MeToo movement.

The protagonist has a close relationship with the great Gustav Mahler, a Jewish man that seems to have been forced to abandon his religion in order to be allowed to advance to the post of director, conductor of the Vienna Opera House.

Alma’s mother and her step father object to the origin of Mahler – being Jewish has not well regarded for those racist people – but the daughter would confront the parent at one time, pointing out that she did not wait long after her father’s death to confirm her rather inglorious affair with his assistant, who is now her step father, a bigot.

The excellent Jonathan Pryce plays Gustav Mahler with enormous talent and although a genius, in his private life he proves to be a demanding, difficult, tiresome man, even before the marriage, for he asks his talented wife to give up her composing.

She agrees to that, but she would probably never forgive Mahler for the crashing of her potential career, creative urge and the joy of composing, which would later be appreciated by a poet who would become yet another lover.

The Bride of the Wind is an excellent wife, in spite of the reputation which she would gain and which seems to be based on some real facts, if the plot of the film is to be believed…it is impossible for this viewer to know how much is real and what is artistic license, before reading one the biographies, or indeed, the autobiography of the heroine.

Alma takes care of the famous composer, whose works we are told at the end of the motion picture are as frequently performed by the great philharmonics of the world as those of Beethoven, Mozart or Bach are.

Tragedy strikes however, when one of their two daughters dies and the grieving mother travels to a spa, where she meets Walter Gropius, a phenomenal architect that would influence the architecture of the last century and would become a professor at Harvard in his later years.

Evidently, many pretentious members of high society in Vienna condemned the woman – she says at one point that she has never been popular with mothers, one would even say that she has a revolver and wants to kill her.

After Gustav Mahler dies, his widow will cherish his memory, keeping his bust and photographs prominent in her rooms, causing the ire of her next lover, Oskar Kokoschka, a painter and sculptor who fist draws her portrait, then becomes intimate with her and also too possessive, stating at one point that he would kill her if she abandons him.

Alma Mahler is absent for a while, the painter has another fit, jealously asking who is she seeing, only to be told that she is pregnant, went on her own to think about it and has decided not to have the baby.

World War I breaks out and the heroine is happy that the painter is off to the Eastern front where alas, he is shot in the head and then bayoneted, causing his mother to threaten Alma with a revolver, but miraculously coming back to “life” to see his lover.

Unfortunately for him, in the meantime Alma Mahler has reconnected with Walter Gropius, is married to him and when Kokoschka becomes exuberant, exhilarated with the fact that she kept his baby, she repeats that it has been more than a year since he has been listed as dead…it takes a while for the man who is “twice reborn” to understand that after more than none year the unborn baby cannot be his…

Things do not go well with Walter Gropius, who is another domineering genius, demanding to have the sketches made by Oskar Kokoschka removed as insolent, after he had just spoken about creating buildings that are a collaboration with artists…so much for collaboration, his wife wisely says.

It is extraordinary for one human being to be the companion, lover, best friend of one genius, but when she has in her life two titans, it can be seen as miraculous, divine, and otherworldly.

Except Alma Mahler- Gropius has been the inspiration, Bride of the Wind for four great artists, adding to the list of the aforementioned Franz Werfel, who seems to have been less towering that the other there lovers.

Bride of the Wind is an inspiring, excellent work, if you ask me and dismiss what other critics and the public said about it, which might not make much sense.