Corsage

Vicky Krieps is mesmerising as Empress Elisabeth of Austria in this bold, revisionist Cannes prize winner that uncinches the Sissi legend forever.

It’s 1877 and Elisabeth (Krieps, Phantom Thread; Bergman Island, originally slated for MIFF 2021) – Empress of Austria, Duchess of Bavaria and Queen of Hungary – has just turned 40. Feeling lonely, bored and old, “Sissi” (as her subjects fondly refer to her) defies her husband, Emperor Franz Joseph, and attempts to withdraw from public life, instead wearing a veil over her face, subjecting her body to strenuous physical training and obsessing over her weight. She’s rebelling against the restraints of royalty and who the world believes her to be.

Krieps won the Un Certain Regard Best Performance Prize for a starring turn that is at once audacious and complex. Subverting our expectations of both biopics and period films, writer/director Marie Kreutzer and her predominantly female crew adhere mostly to the historical record. Corsage avoids hero worship, supplanting the ‘sentimental Sissi’ image popularised in countless films with a woman who was more than just a victim of her gilded existence. Kreutzer’s empress is flawed, narcissistic and decidedly modern – questioning what’s left when the power attached to her beauty slips away.

“This is a study in anger, and it is an austere and angular picture. Krieps gives an exhilaratingly fierce, uningratiating performance.” – The Guardian