First things first, we have definitely had a feature Sisi & I film on the Empress Elisabeth of Austria, known to most people as Sisi, not too long ago. This was Marie Kreutzer’s film titled “Corsage” (2022), which starred Vicky Krieps who never really smiled and always looked serious throughout the movie to suit her role as a miserable 19th Century queen.
This woman did not only feel restrained by tight laced corsets but also by the period’s repressive attitudes towards her, hence she had to maintain a certain weight despite loving sweets (she unfortunately developed an eating disorder) and follow some kind of behavior required from her – expectations that she did not want at all. Today? She ironically covers every single tourist souvenir in Austria other than those occupied by Mozart or Beethoven with everything from milk chocolate wrappers to cheap eyeglass cases. Hence it may be concluded that Sisi remains restricted still imprisoned tortured or in torment till date which is brutally real as a reality Frauke Finsterwalder tries unlocking (and undoing) in his present day “Sisy & I” just like Kreutzer before him wanted.
Which is why this new Sisi & I film, co-written by Finsterwalder and Christian Kracht has many similarities with “Corsage.” For one thing it is full of anachronisms like its counterpart; Helga Lohninger’s fabulous costumes not all of them are historically accurate but they say something about our past and present clothing like the movie itself. Yet there is something missing somehow about this fresh piece in its search where Corsage was cheeky, playfully dark and even included some heartstring-pulling mischief. Sisi & I doesn’t have that extra edge though.
But then again these movies have little more in common than one might think, since Fisterwalder has made her own picture primarily through the eyes of Countess Irma (Sandra Hüller), Sisi’s (Susanne Wolff) loyal handmaidens, who has been more reticent since her amazing dual role in Anatomy of a Fall and The Zone of Interest. When we meet her, she feels that there are no good alternatives to her questionable future: becoming a wife or entering the cloister or joining the circle around Sisi. Ultimately, last option is highly attractive for an oppressed girl who hates male body hair and undergoing verbal and physical abuse from her mother.
Nor does being in the monarch’s inner circle necessarily prove to be an escape route she had hoped for. This becomes obvious during the interview on Corfu when Irma throws up after being sea sick and is weighed plus measured as if Reynolds Woodcock in “Phantom Thread” owns her. It gets worse from then on, even eating what little food one is allowed while wearing what Sisi selects for that clique of hers under strict drug controls by nobility. Sisi would also play mind games; hot to cold switches (and sometimes even sexually suggestive ones) indicate her ever changing loyalty that can shift without notice like in Yorgos Lanthimos’ “The Favourite” and Irma should better be prepared emotionally for this rollercoaster ride.
Finsterwalder’s “Sisi & I” is not as fascinating a movie when it sticks to the Empress. (For that we have the even more impressive “Corsage.”) It achieves more success when it remains with a bitter Irma, slowly finding her voice and strength despite everything else that happens around her. In real life, Irma spent Sisi’s last four years with her from 1894 to 1898 while they traveled throughout Europe, and was present at Sisi’s murder. In this case too, often a film that feels drawn out chronicles these trips in great detail and wisely taps into the queerness of its characters in differing measures. One of the major ones among those who are related to this is Sisi’s cross-dressing brother-in-law Viktor (Georg Friedrich), who was then notorious as a libertine. And above all, Hüller’s devotion to her own role is most notable—even when she doesn’t make much noise about Irma, she somehow upstages Sisi in an attempt to hijack “Sisi & I.”
In other words this is ultimately a sufficiently defiant female picture rejecting the glass walls of oppressive norms–it is about struggling for breath rather than getting sucked into a quicksand pit no matter how beautifully constructed it may be. Finsterwalder might sometimes be timid in her liberating and empowering search though. Therefore, there are still some mainstream avails for this Sisi regardless of whether they lack behind just the existence of “Corsage”
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