Film review: Corsage may be a period piece but it tells a timeless tale

In Corsage Elisabeth simultaneously plays along even as she secretly rebels. Pictures: MK2 Films.

★★★★☆

Christmas is the great festival of hope and renewal, but not for the Empress Elisabeth of Austria (Vicky Krieps), who turns 40 on Christmas Eve 1877 as Corsage (15A) begins. Once renowned as a beauty whose vivacious youth mirrored the empire’s vitality, Elisabeth now finds herself considered old and irrelevant by her husband, the Emperor Franz Joseph (Florian Teichtmeister). Determined not to be marginalised in a society where form trumps substance, Elisabeth embarks on a dangerously radical diet she believes is necessary to rejuvenate her appearance. A period piece it may be, but Marie Kreutzer’s fictional account of a year in Elisabeth’s life is a timeless tale of women who are browbeaten into adapting to a particular image in order to be taken seriously. 

Kreutzer makes Elisabeth’s modernity explicit by introducing a number of 20th-century pop songs

Elisabeth’s shape and weight have no bearing on her intelligence, of course, but at a time when the empire is experiencing upheaval and change, her advice won’t be taken seriously unless she looks the part. That’s a ridiculous notion, of course, not least because the men are fully aware of how ludicrous it is: Elisabeth’s balding husband, for example, adopts false whiskers when appearing in public, because that is what his peers and the wider public expect. A study in conflict, Elisabeth simultaneously plays along even as she secretly rebels, with Krieps superb as she inhabits the character of a woman who is wasting away inside her ever-tightening corset before the eyes of those who watch, judge and find her wanting. Kreutzer makes Elisabeth’s modernity explicit by introducing a number of 20th-century pop songs (The Stones, Kris Kristofferson) played on traditional instruments, and the result is a haunting depiction of a woman possessed of “a soul like a chaotic museum”.

(cinema release)