Worth: $18.50
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Cast:
Vicky Krieps, Colin Morgan, Florian Teichtmeister, Katharina Lorenz, Aaron Friesz, Finnegan Oldfield, Rosa Hajjaj, Manuel Ruby
Intro:
… funny, tragic, and ultimately a rebellion …
In biographical films, there is often a challenge to separate truth from fiction. Audiences will argue whether certain events happened or debate the filmmaker’s perspective. Such concerns are sometimes thrown to the wind when it’s decided that the work will be an imagined fable. Despite using Antonia Fraser’s biography of Marie Antoinette, Sofia Coppola made Marie Antoinette to embody what she saw as the spirit of the ill-fated monarch. Similarly, Pablo Larraín crafted a haunting psychodrama about Diana Princess of Wales in Spencer that imagined a weekend that was spent with the royal family over Christmas. Marie Kreutzer’s astonishing film Corsage takes Empress Elisabeth of Austria (Vicky Krieps) and imagines a year of her life. There is fact within the fiction, but Kreutzer isn’t asking audiences to dissect what is real and what is not; she’s asking the viewer to see a woman bound in a patriarchal society whose restless spirit and autonomy is constantly being crushed under the weight of the expectation to conform to what was deemed acceptable behaviour.
In 1887, Empress Elisabeth (Sisi) is about to turn forty. For many years, her beauty has been the greatest currency she held. She is undoubtedly a vain woman, whose self-punishing regime to maintain a wasp-like waist has led to an eating disorder and being corseted to the point where the garment bruises her body. The first line of the film is uttered by one of Sisi’s maids, “She scares me.” Is the maid scared for Sisi, or scared of Sisi? Probably a little of both. Sisi’s moods vary from melancholic to euphoric. Her husband Franz Joseph (Florian Teichtmeister) berates her for failing to give her Austrian subjects the same amount of time that she has devoted to Hungary (Sisi’s devotion to Hungary cemented the Austro-Hungarian Empire).
An early fashion icon and frequent subject of printed gossip, Sisi lives in a gilded cage. Kreutzer cleverly reveals how rotten that cage is with the palace a mix of extreme luxury and decaying walls with peeling paint. Sisi tries to connect with her young daughter, Valerie (Rosa Hajjaj) who is shocked by her mother’s “vulgarity”, which includes smoking. Sisi’s true connection lies with her son Rudolf (Aaron Friesz) who is equally unsuited to royal life, and her small coterie of loyal servants, particularly Marie (Katharina Lorenz). What propels the Empress forward is the notion of escape – sometimes that takes the form of riding for hours, at others, it’s extended holidays outside of Vienna, and most particularly, her thinly veiled threats of suicide.
What Sisi most desires is to be loved for herself, but as she states, “I have nothing to hold onto except myself and sometimes that seems like an incredible effort.” She is speaking to Louis Le Prince (Finnegan Oldfield), a pioneer of the motion picture camera. He asked to film her, and the result sees Sisi screaming obscenities while the camera captures her smiling.
Sisi adores her Bavarian cousin, the so-called mad-king Ludwig II (Manuel Ruby), who understands her melancholy and relishes their “oneness” as outsiders trying to survive their prescribed roles. She also adores her one-time riding instructor the Anglo-Scot minor nobility, George ‘Bay’ Middleton (Colin Morgan) and strings on his clear affections for her. What Sisi truly adores is how Bay looks at her – she wants him to reaffirm her beauty. Their flirtation does not go unnoticed with Rudolf chastising her for her behaviour.
Anyone familiar with the true story of Sisi and her family, knows that it ends in terrible tragedy. Kreutzer’s deliberately anachronistic fable (musicians play ‘Help Me Make it Through the Night’ and ‘As Tears Go By’— a tractor appears in a scene) gives Sisi some control over her destiny. Recrimination for not conforming to royal protocol becomes irrelevant to her as she has plans for the ultimate escape. “God made a mistake with me,” says Rudolf when he and Sisi are discussing Franz Joseph’s belief in divine majesty. “He also made a mistake with me,” she says before leaving the room and flipping the bird to the prestigious guests assembled at a dinner party.
Vicky Krieps give a tour-de-force performance. Even when Sisi is at her most self-centred, we feel how alive and trussed in performative wires the woman is, and we empathise. Sisi takes excursions through the Vienna Asylum for the insane, and Kreutzer makes it clear that her sympathies are with the inmates, for there but by the grace of God, she could have become an inmate herself. In an attempt to cheer her, Franz Joseph asks Sisi what she would like to be gifted. Her answer is a Bengal Tiger or an extension to the Asylum (this conversation actually occurred).
Kreutzer’s film is carried by flawless production design (Martin Reiter), costuming (Monika Buttinger), and wonderful cinematography (Judith Kaufmann). The soundtrack by French musician Camille is contemporary yet haunting. It is unsurprising that Corsage was Austria’s official selection for the Oscars and that it garnered Krieps a Cannes Un Certain Regard Best Performance.
Corsage is a statement about autonomy and Kreutzer deliberately constructs a fiction about a woman who is as relevant a symbol now as she was then. Corsage is unabashedly feminist despite showing that Sisi is far from perfect. Kreutzer gifts the monarch a far better ending than her real life allowed and ironically was able to do so because Sisi’s trademark beauty was so recognisable. Corsage is funny, tragic, and ultimately a rebellion. Long live Empress Elisabeth of Austria.
