Cannes Review: ‘Corsage’ doesn’t reinvent the genre but Vicky Krieps leads Marie Kreutzer’s Austrian period drama with fragility and forte [Grade: B+]

For her fifth feature, Austrian filmmaker Marie Kreutzer turns to the history books, and more specifically, to a female figure of the 19th century whose significance, like that of so many others in her kind, has been limited to appearance and fashion sense only. The person in question is Empress Elizabeth (Sissi) of Austria who has been a source for inspiration for many TV and film renditions. However, Kreutzer zooms in on one calendar year – 1877, as the Empress turns 40 – offering her a well-deserved emancipatory rewrite. It was Phantom Thread actor Vicky Krieps who proposed the idea for this project first and her dedication shines through in an enigmatically steadfast Sissi.

Lensed by Judith Kaufmann as an emotionally motivated map of fin de siècle Europe, Corsage is rich in wide shots and tracks to have material iterations of the Empress’ transnational reputation. She did travel across Europe quite a bit and her affection for Hungary has been instrumental for the formation of the Empire as an Austro-Hungarian allegiance; we also follow her to England, France, the Alps: all picturesque residences where her inner turmoil unfolds. The records of physical movement in her gait, horseback riding, and carriage trips are also carriers of her psychological state, as the camera trades in long shots for close ups, stillness for handheld instability.

Krieps inhabits the disciplined body of the Empress dutifully and minor details such as the composure in her blinking give away the strictness of her physical being in the world. Alongside her diet and exercise regimen, Sissi was famous for her practice of “tight-lacing” – a cosmetic practice which was nevertheless a tortuous one in its actuality: an ambivalence that is further expanded as the narrative unfolds. The title itself hints at this but also paints the nuances of masochism underscoring Elizabeth’s symbolic disobedience to a patriarchal order that would expect of her nothing less than producing babies. It is through this corporeal dimension that the film gains weight, slowly peeling off some period drama conventions in the wake of a less constrained end result, granting its protagonist the freedom history never fully allowed her.

In a period that insistently equated restlessness with sickness, it’s obvious that female sensuality, especially that of women in high court, would be subject of scrutiny and silence. What Corsage does for the historical pathologization of women’s mental health in general is channeled through Vicky Krieps’s blend of physical acting and ephemeral delivery. At the beginning, we see her faint in public – later, she laughingly shares her manual on public fainting to spare herself the boredom of etiquette. Krieps’ Elizabeth is melancholic, often depressed with bouts of joie de vivre which are repeatedly stifled by the rigid monarchist – and patriarchal – system.

While Corsage does not by any means reinvent the period genre, its sparse use of defiant elements goes down well to imbue the film with a freshness that saves it from falling flat. One of these is the inclusion of contemporary indie pop artist Camille in the film’s soundtrack, and her tunes accompany some exquisitely shot sequences, rendering the expected royal image a bit more punk. The inclusion of sex and sexual frustration is another good addition to the film’s rebellious arsenal and perhaps its most controversial facet is exemplified by the suggestion that maybe – just maybe – Elizabeth could be seeking out the male gaze, demanding of her male lovers the same things a man of power would, within similar hierarchical ramifications.

In a rather playful move, the film allows an encounter which, as far as history has it, never took place: that between Empress Sissi and cinema. Corsage presents us with Louis Le Prince (Finnegan Oldfield), inventor of the earliest motion-picture camera and predecessor to the Lumiere brothers who offers her a go at being filmed. Skeptical at first, Elizabeth agrees, and a lovely sequence sees in the English countryside’s bucolic nowhere, shouting out what we assume are swear words and screams after learning that she can say whatever she wants on camera, as long as she smiles. The early affordances of the cinematographic apparatus here turn history’s way of depriving women of their voice into a tool for reclamation, even for the ones who prefer their corsets exceptionally tight.

Grade: B+

This review is from the 2022 Cannes Film Festival. IFC Films will distribute Corsage in the U.S.