Corsage (15)
Director: Marie Kreutzer
Starring: Vicky Krieps, Florian Teichtmeister.
Biography Drama History Austria 2022
1 hr 54 mins Subtitles

The Austro-Hungarian “House of Hapsburg” was never short of excesses. Elisabeth of Austria (1837-98), affectionately known as Sissi, may have been the most glamorous royal subject in pre-modern Europe.

“Corsage” is a film about a segment of her life at the height of changing cultural norms.

The film is about a woman feeling that the ground might crumble beneath her – clinging tenuously to her sanity while the Austro-Hungarian empire suffocates her with its starched protocol.

Corsage depicts Elisabeth at 40, struggling to maintain her flawless image and that of the empire she is expected to incarnate.

Sissi yearns for affection, but it evades her.

Her response is to defy her protocols and conventions in ways which make others question her sanity.

Purbeck Film Festival 2023 at Bridport | Fri 20 Oct-Sat 4 Nov