Austria’s Oscar© 2023 Entry for Best International Feature: ‘Corsage’ by Marie Kreutzer;Marie Kreutzer
A corsage is not a flower but a corset gripping the very guts of Sisi, the Empress of the Hapsburg Empire. Married at 16, by 40, hating aging and gaining weigh, Sisi pines away, never finding a pathway toward life.
Quite the opposite of my other favorite films of Cannes where it premiered along with Plus que jamais aka More Than Ever directed by Emily Atef and also starring a luminous Vicky Krieps, Revoir Paris aka ‘Paris Memorie by Alice Winocour and totally forgotten by now, and Un beau matin aka One Fine Morning by Mia Hansen-Love and starring Lea Seydoux in one of her best roles, where the female protagonists heed their inner voices to lead them on their unique pathways to peace. This film nevertheless features a top performance by Vicky Krieps (The Phantom Thread, Plus que jambs) for which she won the Cannes Award for Best Actress in a modern rendition of celebrity royalty.
Recalling Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette with its touches of modernism like in the songs sung for royal entertainment, or recalling the real life Princess Diana’s own futile quest for inner peace, Corsage stands on the brilliant direction by Marie Kreutzer who also wrote the screenplay. Beautiful cinematophy by Judith Kaufmann, striking music by Camille, superb editing by Ulrike Kofler. The costumes by Monika Buttinger are extraordinary! The attractive production design may be by another woman but it is uncredited in IMDb. In all, the crew is comprised of a majority of women.
Elisabeth has gone down in history as an empress of eternal youthfulness and beauty. For more than three decades she was regarded as the most beautiful queen in Europe. When Sisi married at 16, she was carefree and frivolous, and imagined herself in love with Emperor Franz Joseph who was head over heals in love with her.
In this rendition of her story, Empress Elizabeth of Austria is idolized for her beauty and renowned for inspiring fashion trends. In 1877 Christmas Empress turns 40 and is officially deemed an old woman she starts trying to maintain her public image.
The glamour of her clothes and the portraits and sculptures of her are still intoxicating while in fact, and as shown in the film, to her, they were toxic reminders to her of lost youth.
Today her life is displayed as kitsch; just visit Vienna to see.
She spent hours each day in efforts to preserve her legendary beauty. Her most striking feature was her thick, ankle-length hair, the care of which required enormous expenditure of time. Franziska Feifalik, the empress’s personal hairdresser, skilfully contrived ingenious hairstyles, including the famous braided crown.
She expressed hardly any political opinions in the final decades of her life. Having put immense pressure on the emperor during the negotiations with Hungary for the Compromise by which the lands of the House of Habsburg were reorganized as a real union between the Austrian Empire and the Hungarian Kingdom, a unpopular event, Elisabeth was forbidden by her husband to interfere in politics ever again. The event is eluded to in the course of telling the story of her progressive retreat from public life.
Elisabeth withdrew from the court and began to lead her own life according to her inclinations. This is where the film begins.
She spent hours on horseback, riding and dressage; she composed verses in the style of the German poet Heinrich Heine and she travelled frequently. In her apartment she had a gymnastic apparatus set up and performed a strenuous daily program of exercises, which scandalized the court.
After the tragic suicide of her son Rudolf in 1889 the empress only appeared in mourning on official occasions in the lands of the Monarchy and retreated into her grief. Black veils and fans completed the image of the grieving, withdrawn woman. In the film, we do not know of Rudolf’s death but we see her dressed in black and may wonder what precipitated that.
A few other questions remain unanswered in the film, like what were her deepest feelings about her husband and what were his about her? He had numerous mistresses, but their love making, when it finally happens, is both seductive and tender, and she chooses a proper mistress for him as if to replace her in his affections.
Most disappointing is her never finding a way of life for herself. Krieps’ depiction of a life with all exits but one cut off is deeply moving until one realizes that given all she had going for her, she was not able to grow in any way.
After its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, it went on to play at the Munich International Film Festval, then going to the Jerusalem Film Festival, the Melbourne International Film Festival and in September to the Toronto International Film Festival.
ISA MK2 has so far sold the film to IFC for No. America, Ad Vitam for France, Alamode for Germany, Panda Lichtspiele for Austria, Angel for Denmark, Picturehouse for U.K. and Ireland, The Searchers for Benelux, Ascot Elite for Switzerland, Cirko for Hungary, European Film Forum Scanorama for the Baltics, Bim for Italy, Green Narae for So. Korea, Hooray for Taiwan.
The production company behind the film, Germany’s Komplizen Film has become the 10th member of The Creatives, an alliance of independent production companies that work together to co-produce, form strategic partnerships and share information and talent and buyer networks.They are looking at a three-year partnership for developing and funding select series with Fremantle.
Komplizen principals are Janine Jackowski, Maren Ade and Jonas Dornbach. It is one of the key players on the international arthouse film scene, working with directors including Radu Jude, Miguel Gomes, Nadav Lapid, Sonja Heiss and Valeska Griesbach as well as producing Ade’s own three features to date, including her 2016 international hit Toni Erdmann.
Their film was Nicolette Krebitz’s A E I O U — A Quick Alphabet Of Love in the Berlinale Competition in 2022. They have also co-produced Pablo Larrain’s Spencer, with the UK’s Shoebox Films.
In 2019, the company expanded into producing for television with the establishment of Komplizen Serien and went on to make the Frankfurt-based series Skylines for Netflix.
The other companies in The Creatives are Haut et Court (France), Good Chaos (UK), Lemming Film (Netherlands), Maipo Film (Norway), Masha (US), Razor Film (Germany) Spiro (Israel), Unité (France) and Versus Production (Belgium).
“We are happy and proud that our highly esteemed colleagues and also longtime friends from Komplizen Film are going to join the Creatives family,” said Roman Paul and Gerhard Meixner, co-CEOs of the other German member Razor Film.
Komplizen Film’s Janine Jackowski and Jonas Dornbach added that they were very much looking forward to joining forces with “a network of exquisite international and independent producers who share our visions in a rapid and dynamic industry.”
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