The princess did not come to court – Newspaper Kommersant No. 195 (7396) of 10/20/2022

Marie Kreutzberg’s film Corsage, which Austria nominated for an Oscar, is being released, and Vicky Krieps, who played the role of Empress Elisabeth of Austria in the film, received the Un Certain Regard award at the Cannes Film Festival for her. Paying tribute to the really excellent work of the actress, Julia Shagelman still not imbued with the depth of the personal drama of her heroine.

Duchess Elisabeth of Bavaria (1837–1898), wife of Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria-Hungary, who went down in history under her household name Sissi, was one of the first royals to become a pop culture icon and an important tourist asset. Her portraits in Vienna are viewed from all showcases of souvenir shops, from postcards, magnets and candy boxes. However, during her lifetime, Elizabeth did not enjoy great love from her subjects, becoming popular only after her death at the hands of an anarchist murderer. Her image is overgrown with all the stereotypes inherent in fairy-tale heroines: extraordinary beauty, kindness and a bit of tragedy, so that the princess could not only admire, but also feel sorry for her. These ideas were strengthened by the film trilogy directed by Ernst Marischka (1955-1958), which turned Sissi’s biography into a lush lubok with cream roses. Romy Schneider, who played the Empress, became a superstar in her homeland, but at the same time she found herself in the grip of typecasting, which she managed to escape from only thanks to filming in French and American films, which were considered scandalous and indecent in Austria.

Sissi herself (Vicky Krieps) in Corsage is in the same grip of the role that she is disgusted with. This very corsage, which the maids pull on her so that her waist is no more than 45 cm, becomes the film’s main – and obsessively repeated, so that it comes to the most inattentive – metaphor. The empress literally can’t breathe, shackled by strict court etiquette and tedious state duties, which for her include standing still at official events, listening to children’s choirs sing hymns, and opening museums and hospitals. All this has to be done on an empty stomach: in order to maintain harmony, Sissy’s menu consists of broth and thinly sliced ​​​​oranges, while everyone around, naturally, eats cakes. At the same time, both the courtiers and almost just passing members of the public strive to let the hairpin go – about the empress’s struggle with being overweight, her frequent absences from Vienna, her too close relationship with Foreign Minister Gyula Andrássy.

Of course, all this terribly oppresses Sissi, and then old age approaches (at the beginning of the film, in December 1877, the Empress turns 40 years old), and her husband (Florian Teichtmeister) begins to look at the young. She feels happy only when, in violation of all the rules, she escapes from the palace – either for a night ride, then to her cousin Ludwig of Bavaria (Manuel Ruby) in his castle on the lake, then to her sister (May Garson) in her English estate, where again on the other hand, he rides a horse without restraint in the company of a handsome bereytor (Colin Morgan). Franz Joseph and even the children, adult son Rudolf (Aaron Frisch) and little Maria Valeria (Rosa Hadjaj), reproach their wife and mother for inappropriate behavior and try to reason, but in vain. In general, as it was sung in another film about another princess, “Your condition is hysterical, / Eat, daughter, a dietary egg. / Or maybe we should see a doctor? / I do not want anything!”

Of course, in our time, telling the old tale of a bird in a golden cage using the methods of a traditional biopic is no longer fashionable. To do this, there is The Crown on Netflix, which reproduces the smallest details from the life of the British royal family in the 20th century with documentary accuracy. In Cannes, this is not taken away, and Marie Kreuzer adds a generous dose of deconstruction and postmodernism to her picture. For example, Franz Joseph, entering private chambers, peels off his famous whiskers (yeah, the audience is savvy, this means that everyone wears masks at court and even the emperor can show his true face only to the closest). Royal palaces and residences of aristocrats look shabby, collapsing, with bare walls and peeling paint, which, of course, hints at the imminent collapse and death of the empire. Every now and then, the most mundane items from our time flicker in the interiors, such as a plastic bucket for washing floors or a French press – not so far, they say, these emperors, kings and dukes have left us.

Such a technique might have seemed original and even daring if it had not been used in Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette (2005) and had not since become a new cliché that replaced the old clichés of biopics. One can count on one hand the pictures where such deliberate anachronisms are not used now. Without them, Corsage becomes just another story about a very rich and privileged woman, yet yearning under the heel of the patriarchy. And from about the middle of the film, you begin to understand Sissi very well, languishing with boredom at the next palace reception.