Corsage
Cert 15 | ★★★★★
Winner of Best Film at this year’s London Film Festival, Marie Kreutzer’s German-language costume drama Corsage is a fictionalised retelling of the life of Empress Elizabeth of Austria, also known as Sissi.
Starring Luxembourgish-German actress Vicky Krieps, the film also features some impressive turns from Florian Teichtmeister (playing Emperor Franz Joseph), Colin Morgan, Finnegan Oldfield and Aaron Friesz.
Often idolised for her beauty, fashion sense and sparkling, inquisitive personality, Empress Elisabeth of Austrian is listless and melancholy at her 40th birthday celebrations in 1877.
Fighting to keep her figure with the help of excessive dieting and the use of restricting corsets, Sissi feels suffocated by Hapsburg court life, especially after her royal duties are reduced to purely performative, against her will.
Taking several trips around Europe where she is entertained by former lovers, riding instructors and fellow European royalty, Sissi rebels against those who want to stifle her restless nature and thirst for excitement and knowledge.
As her relationship with the emperor and even her own children deteriorates, she turns to a destructive hedonistic lifestyle.
With recent high-profile talk of the stifling nature of royal duty, it is hard not to draw parallels between Kreutzer’s representation of Sissi and modern royals. Here, the Austrian writer-director delivers a bald feminist narrative about a woman who simply refuses to accept the establishment’s plans for her.
Corsgae credit Felix Vratny (3)
A scene from Corsage (Felix Vratny)
Previously known for stealing almost every scene from under Daniel Day-Lewis’s nose in Paul Thomas Anderson’s sumptuous 2017 period drama Phantom Thread, Krieps here delivers a career best in a role she was born to play.
Sissi is portrayed as a woman whose intellect surpasses all those around her, but has to abide by rules made by men with half her intelligence.
Elevated by a brilliantly well-thought-out, anachronistic soundtrack, Corsage is an expertly crafted study in female rage against the establishment. This is one of the best films of the year.
