Bottled in a strong compression

When AMC Madison 6 closed back in the fall, I was saddened because it could be counted on to screen more arty/foreign films during the winter. That and it was on a bus line. I went into this winter thinking that Madison would have a dearth of interesting fare on offer in theaters. Well, until the UW Cinematheque started up again, anyway.

I was surprised and quite happy to see some of the area multiplexes programming non-Marvel fare and films from foreign lands. As the new year began, I decided to check out more of these offerings thinking that, if I avoided them as I likely would have in prior years because they weren't "arty" enough or didn't have a plot that sounded immediately interetsing, I might be stuck with only mainstream dreck. More or less.

I don't say this to damn Corsage with faint praise because this fictional look at Empress Elisabeth of Austria is quite good.

Vicky Krieps plays the empress and she looked very familiar. I looked her up and realized I'd seen her in the Das Boot TV series as well as the German TV movie, Rommel. As Grady from The Shining might have said, she is a very willful woman. She is discontented with her lot as empress, essentially a bauble for her husband.

The movie chronicles her defiance and acts of rebellion. For example, she gives a dinner party the finger as she exits and she takes her son out on a little adventure that the emperor perceives as having put him in danger. Her discontentment is, I think, partly due to her age. Nearing 40, she finds that her husband is not attracted to her as he once was. But not everything stems from her fading beauty.

At one point her husband tells her that she is there to represent, not to offer her opinion. As a smart woman, she is suffocating in a purely symbolic role as empress and her corsage, a.k.a. - bodice or corset, becomes a potent symbol of the forces that constrict her.

What sets what is mainly a historical drama apart are the anachronisms sprinkled throughout. When I first saw a set of modern glass doors, I wondered if perhaps the filmmakers were just hoping no one would notice given the rest of the scene. But other sets were not of the late 19th century nor was the ship at the end. A clever way to link Elisabeth's travails to that of many women today who are similarly bound and constricted.