Amazon.com Customer Reviews
 Rated 2 out of 5
What a disappointment
Mahler is one of my favourite composers, to the extent that I am familiar with the scores of many of his symphonies. So it was with great anticipation that I went to see this film. What better raw material for a movie than the obviously troubled soul of this great man?
What we get is a movie with highly varying quality and style, whose bits do not marry into an harmonious unison. Most of the time the film is realistic, and here Russell manages some real triumphs without plunging to vulgarity: all the train scenes are meticulously worked out, the relationship between Gustav and Alma at their lake-shore house (inc. the Kindertottenlieder music accompanying Alma looking for one of her daughters). Or the moving scene when Mahler visits Hugo Wolf in the asylum.But then you get these forays into slapstick: The Chaplinesque scene sepicting Mahler’’s conversion to Christianity (Russell couldn’’t even resist putting on Woddy Allen style glasses on Mahler’’s nose) with Cosima Wagner as a vulgar Nazi Goddess. Or the family scenes from Mahler’’s childhood, done with such exaggeration and vulgarity that you can be sure the Elders of Zion will have a hard time surpassing. Or the swimming scene from Mahler’’s childhood, suffering from excess naivette. Ken Russell looks as if he had a real hard time deciding what he wants to be: A serious movie director, or a really funny (??) guy. He seems to have overlooked the possibility of inserting humour, darkness and symbolism with nuances - he has to spit it in our face. Many compliments go to Bernard Haitink who conducts the Royal Concertgebouw in a marvelous performance of the pieces.  Rated 4 out of 5
For any Mahler lover, a DVD worth having in a collection
As a Mahler lover, I could say that the music in the dvd is excellently played. The sellection is right. Most scenes seem to be adequate to his life.
Some parts of the film resulted rather funny to me,e.g. when Mahler is forced to fight a dragon and comes out of its cave with a pork head, then eating part of it. Some would say it is symbolic, but this part seems to be in contrast with the rest of the film, which could be said to be serious. But anyway, it is ok, I mean it is not disgusting. I think that any Mahler lover just does not want any representation to be unrespectful of the artist we love so much. This film is respectul.
A scene in which Alma is represented as being shadowed by him is twofold, as you can take her as death walking behind him. There is also a scene with death arriving in a boat, mixing her with the soprano singer who practiced with Mahler. Interesting.
Just the beginning of the film, pays its price. With a shocking fact plus the climax of his unfinished tenth symphony.
Even though there are many scenes in which Alma is depicted as to prone to flirt, the emphasys, in my opinion, does not go beyond the line. In fact, a scene starting with Beethoven`s statue in a graveyard, in a time close to Mahler`s death, is I think, depicting quite acurately the state of mind of Gustav.
I mean, I think Alma could have been just waiting for his death in order to find for herself a younger lover. Maybe I am wrong.
To finish, as a Mahler lover I always end up deeply sad, because he died early. I wonder, what if he had lived for 60 years. Why Albert Camus died in his 40s.
In fact there is no god; but had there been one, he was the one who killed Mahler and Camus, because he would have seen that these guys were creating perfect art, and his universe is chaos.
We all know that Gustav Mahler is the only God ever existed.
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