You can listen to a podcast review of this film here.
The Bloch-Bauers were a successful cosmopolitan Viennese family whose house formed a salon where one might meet Dr Freud or Arnold Schoenberg. Gustav Klimt painted a portrait of Adele, the celebrated Woman In Gold, but this was confiscated by the Nazis along with many other works of art. After the war the painting hung for decades in the Belvedere Gallery until Adele's niece Maria sued the Austrian government for its return. Dispute instituting a restitution committee, the government was understandably reluctant to give up paintings which had, by then, become synonymous with Austrian culture. The process was thus one that was obdurate and highly contested.
