A pioneer of abstract painting and, as this film tells it, the leader of an all-woman spiritualist collective, the Swedish artist Hilma af Klint was rather written off by the art world establishment during her lifetime (she died in the 1940s). But this handsome biopic by Lasse Hallström, with his daughter Tora Hallström in the role of the younger Hilma, attempts to redress the balance. An intriguing, confounding subject, Af Klint is full of contradictions. She’s a magnetic, disruptive presence; a true original who challenges the male art world hegemony, but also seeks its approval; a gifted artist, but one who claims her hand is guided by uncanny forces.
