This movie is about the king's obsession with a mock-heroic fairy-tale mode of life and has no style.

It can feel cumbersome, frustratingly disjointed, at times certainly a heavy watch. And yet this full-length Ludwig... feels today like a painting whose images and forms can be at least freshly recognized.

Built mostly around medium close-ups and dark interiors, the film creates a sense of isolation that matches the lead character's own state of mind.

There is no apparent intelligence in the way all this has been stuck together, let alone the way in which mind-shriveling dialogue has been assigned various mouths.