Corsage
(10 October 2023)
Marie Kreutzer | Austria/Luxembourg *** | 2022 | 15 | 113 mins | German | Trailer
Blending tradition with invention Corsage is a fictional retelling of the life of ‘Sisi’, Empress Elisabeth of Austria as we follow her in her 40th year in 1877. Popular and celebrated for her fashion sense and slender waist she now obsessively strives to maintain this by diet, exercise and lacing her corset ever tighter, but she is bored by her listless life and feels trapped in her role. She has reached an existential crisis and begins to fight for her own self-worth and emancipation, rebelling against her royal duties. A boldly postmodern bio-drama with a stunning central performance from Vicky Krieps who brillliantly conveys Elisabeth’s eccentricity and alienation with all her foibles, flaws and fears; a woman out of her time. Gorgeously filmed, this irreverent account portrays a defiant monarch caught between the historic restrictions of empire and her own desires.