Corsage, a modern version of Sissi the empress a little too wise – Exit Mag

More than 60 years following Ernst Marischka’s kitsch trilogy and its romanticized version of Sissi interpreted by the magnificent Romy Schneider, the Austrian filmmaker Marie Kreutzer offers with Corset a new vision of the famous empress, more modern, but too cold and too wise to really convince, despite Vicky Krieps.

The film plunges us into the tormented mind of a Elisa­beth d’Au­triche aging (just 40 years old), neglected by her husband, oppressed by the court and prisoner of her image of the perfect woman that she tries somehow to preserve (pale face and waist sheared off by a suffocating corset). Far from colorful balls and corny romanticism, here the Empress feigns unease to escape her political obligations or takes refuge in the misty English countryside far from her family, played brilliantly by Vicky Krieps (recently seen alongside Gaspard Ulliel for his last role in More than ever).

Vicky Krieps and Finnegan Oldfield dance Corset by Marie Kreuzer.

A modern version of Sissi without real passion

In the manner of a Marie-Antoi­nette chez Sophia Coppola or Lady Diana chez Pablo Larrain (Spen­cer on Amazon Prime), the costume film explodes to give way to the portrait of an independent woman who escapes from her corset to express her emancipation. Austrian director Marie Kreut­zer (of which few films have been released in France until this one) therefore offers a modern and feminist reinterpretation of the character. This is also felt in the staging that is granted, as Sophia Coppola in his time, a few anachronistic fantasies such as the premature discovery of the camera by Louis Le Prince (Finne­gan Oldfied), a tractor in a field or a recoveryAs tears Go By of the Rolling Stones on the harp. Unfortunately, despite its prettiness and the inhabited interpretation of Vicky Krieps (prize for interpretation at Cannes in the Un Certain Regard section), this disenchanted portrait remains too cold and too wise, letting itself be watched without real passion. Shame.

Corsage by Marie Kreutzer (1h53) with Vicky Krieps, Florian Teichtmeister, Katharina Lorenz and Finnegan Olfied. Released December 14.