Tropic Sprockets / Corsage

By Ian Brockway

Marie Kruetzer (The Ground Beneath My Feet) crafts a story about the Empress of Austria that lulls you into a kind of hypnosis. [For showtimes and trailer, check Tropiccinema.com.] Full of eccentricity and great performances, “Corsage” builds slowly but each reveal compels more and more with every flicker on the screen.

Elisabeth of Bavaria was Empress of Austria from April 1854 until her assassination in 1898. She married Franz Joseph in 1854 and one can gather from history and cinema that the marriage made her greatly unhappy, at least pertaining to her spouse.

Elisabeth (Vicky Krieps) is young and sequestered in royalty. Her every move is measured. She is bored by sundry topics and small talk. Elisabeth has a kinship with horses, entertains spontaneous behavior and enjoys sex. 

A morose Franz Joseph (Florian Teichtemaster) puts chauvinist constraints upon her. Elisabeth resorts by fencing well against the emperor.

Elisabeth lays in bed unapologetically nude and engages in racy acts with chocolate syrup. Then she frets about her appearance asking her aides to bind her corset tighter and tighter, almost beyond human endurance. 

Elisabeth visits psychiatric asylums and develops a rapport with patients. She invariably rails against the status quo and what is expected of her.

There are some surrealist touches. The food becomes like origami, shrinking smaller and smaller. In a few scenes, the empress is a ten-foot Amazon, a real life Alice in Wonderland. The Empress seems to have body dysmorphia. 

Frequently she eats nothing but orange slices sliced razor thin.

The film eerily contains anachronistic music from the 20th century. There are intrusions by The Rolling Stones and Kris Kristofferson. 

At times with all of Elisabeth’s binding, pressing and acute physical mania combined with discomfort, the film could be called “The Possession of Elisabeth,” This is history through a Kafka spyglass.

This is a film that is percussive daring and freewheeling. It has a sly charm and it entrances by degrees, morsel by morsel, a little at a time.

The black and white segments are slapstick and strange as is the film’s haunting dénouement. 

This Empress is weird and wonderful and finally Elisabeth has a film to match her mystery as well as her verve. 

Write Ian at [email protected]

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