{"id":1429,"date":"2024-07-12T13:46:39","date_gmt":"2024-07-12T13:46:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/2024\/07\/12\/sisi-i\/"},"modified":"2024-07-12T13:46:39","modified_gmt":"2024-07-12T13:46:39","slug":"sisi-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/2024\/07\/12\/sisi-i\/","title":{"rendered":"Sisi & I"},"content":{"rendered":"

Let\u2019s get one obvious thing out of the way: Yes, it hasn\u2019t been that long since we\u2019ve had a feature film on the Empress Elisabeth of Austria, commonly known to public as Sisi<\/em>. That film was Marie Kreutzer\u2019s \u201cCorsage\u201d (2022), starring a stiff-lipped and often (aptly) unsmiling Vicky Krieps as the much-tormented 19th-<\/sup>Century royal.<\/p>\n

A woman who felt constrained not only by her tight corsets but also by the era\u2019s 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 fa\u00e7ade 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 \u201cSisi & I,\u201d much like Kreutzer did before her.<\/p>\n

In that, this new Sisi film (co-written by Finsterwalder and Christian Kracht) shares a great deal with \u201cCorsage.\u201d For starters, it is also wall-to-wall anachronisms, from its intentionally feminine-forward contemporary soundtrack to Helga Lohninger\u2019s gorgeous costuming\u2014not 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\u2019s missing a certain something in its quest\u2014where \u201cCorsage\u201d was cheeky, playfully dark and came with a dose of heart-tugging mischief, \u201cSisi & I\u201d feels tame and square by comparison.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s perhaps unfair to compare these films all too closely, since Finsterwalder\u2019s outing is its own thing, seen mostly through the eyes of Sisi\u2019s (Susanne Wolff) loyal handmaiden, Countess Irma (Sandra H\u00fcller, in a quieter register after her extraordinary dual turn in \u201cAnatomy of a Fall\u201d and \u201cThe Zone of Interest.\u201d) 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\u2019s court. At first glance, that last option is immensely attractive for the oppressed woman who\u2019s repulsed by the male bodily hair and abused by her overbearing mother, both verbally and physically.<\/p>\n

But being in the inner circle of the monarch doesn\u2019t necessarily prove to be the escape she\u2019s 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\u2019s the property of Reynolds Woodcock in \u201cPhantom Thread.\u201d And her life from there on out would be even worse, eating however little she\u2019s 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\u2019 \u201cThe Favourite\u201d\u2014the hot and cold Sisi\u2019s bait-and-switch (and sometimes, sexually suggestive) loyalties shift on a whim, and the ever-smitten Irma should be emotionally ready for that rollercoaster.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let\u2019s get one obvious thing out of the way: Yes, it hasn\u2019t been that long since we\u2019ve had a feature film on the Empress Elisabeth of Austria, commonly known to public as Sisi. That film was Marie Kreutzer\u2019s \u201cCorsage\u201d (2022), starring a stiff-lipped and often (aptly) unsmiling Vicky Krieps as the much-tormented 19th-Century royal. A …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[45,55],"class_list":["post-1429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-drama-movies","tag-drama","tag-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1429\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}