Let’s get one obvious thing out of the way: Yes, it hasn’t been that long since we’ve had a feature film on the Empress Elisabeth of Austria, commonly known to public as Sisi. That film was Marie Kreutzer’s “Corsage” (2022), starring a stiff-lipped and often (aptly) unsmiling Vicky Krieps as the much-tormented 19th-Century royal.
A woman who felt constrained not only by her tight corsets but also by the era’s restrictive attitudes towards her, Sisi had to keep at a certain weight despite her love of sweets (she sadly developed an eating disorder) and behave a certain appropriate way, an expectation she had no desire to comply with. Nowadays? From milk chocolate wrappers to cheap eyeglass cases, she ironically decorates the façade of every single tourist souvenir in Austria not occupied by Mozart or Beethoven. So, in other words, Sisi is still corseted, caged, and tormented, a brutal reality director Frauke Finsterwalder tries to unlock (and undo) in the present day with her “Sisi & I,” much like Kreutzer did before her.
In that, this new Sisi film (co-written by Finsterwalder and Christian Kracht) shares a great deal with “Corsage.” For starters, it is also wall-to-wall anachronisms, from its intentionally feminine-forward contemporary soundtrack to Helga Lohninger’s gorgeous costuming—not always accurate to period, but with something purposeful to say about both the past and our present time like the movie it dresses. Still, the new film feels like it’s missing a certain something in its quest—where “Corsage” was cheeky, playfully dark and came with a dose of heart-tugging mischief, “Sisi & I” feels tame and square by comparison.
But it’s perhaps unfair to compare these films all too closely, since Finsterwalder’s outing is its own thing, seen mostly through the eyes of Sisi’s (Susanne Wolff) loyal handmaiden, Countess Irma (Sandra Hüller, in a quieter register after her extraordinary dual turn in “Anatomy of a Fall” and “The Zone of Interest.”) We meet her when she is faced with only bad options for her future: she can marry, or pursue a life in the convent, or become a part of Sisi’s court. At first glance, that last option is immensely attractive for the oppressed woman who’s repulsed by the male bodily hair and abused by her overbearing mother, both verbally and physically.
But being in the inner circle of the monarch doesn’t necessarily prove to be the escape she’s been looking for either. That much is clear during the interview at the Corfu island when a freshly seasick Irma is weighed and measured like she’s the property of Reynolds Woodcock in “Phantom Thread.” And her life from there on out would be even worse, eating however little she’s allowed, wearing what Sisi has chosen for her circle and taking drugs as ordered by the noble lady. There would also be mind games like in Yorgos Lanthimos’ “The Favourite”—the hot and cold Sisi’s bait-and-switch (and sometimes, sexually suggestive) loyalties shift on a whim, and the ever-smitten Irma should be emotionally ready for that rollercoaster.
All things considered, “Sisi & I” is less beguiling as a film when Finsterwalder’s stays close to the Empress. (Again, we have the more impressive “Corsage” for that.) It succeeds more when the tale stays with a frustrated Irma, slowly growing into her voice and confidence despite the circumstances. In real life, Irma accompanied Sisi during the last four years of her existence, from 1894 to 1898, and was present during Sisi’s assassination after her travels through Europe. The film (which often feels overlong) charts these excursions lavishly and smartly leans into its characters’ queer sensibilities, often in varying doses. One of the main personalities in that regard is Sisi’s cross-dressing brother-in-law Viktor (Georg Friedrich), who had a scandalous reputation as a libertine at the time. And through it all, Hüller’s dedication to the part is most impressive—even when the emphasis isn’t on her Irma, she sneakily dethrones Sisi and makes “Sisi & I” her own movie to run away with.
In the end, this is a sufficiently rebellious film about women’s refusal to be forced into sandboxes fashioned by oppressing norms—about fighting for air and resisting the urge to sink into that quicksand, however beautifully decorated. In her liberating and empowering pursuit, Finsterwalder might be meek to a fault sometimes. But this Sisi still has some mainstream pleasures of its own, however overshadowed they may be by the mere existence of “Corsage.”
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