Beyond Youth, Beauty, and Grace
— A Review on “Corsage”
“Tighter,” she demanded.
I cannot imagine anyone not becoming curious when they see a neurotic noble woman ordering her handmaid to tighten up her corset with a pale, suffering face. When the trailer for Corsage, a re-imagination of a crucial year in the reputable Empress Sisi’s life, popped up on my Instagram feed, I knew I was in for something good.
The original trilogy about Princess Sisi’s life was one of the first foreign movies that became popular in China. Our mothers, aunts, and even female teachers spoke of the most influential and beautiful in Austria’s history with glittering eyes and enormous admiration. These women dreamed of becoming Empress Sisi: the powerful, independent, and elegant woman who could proudly stand on equal grounds with her star-crossed lover.
However, the real empress lived a life of deception, betrayal, loss, and depression. Her husband was originally engaged to her elder sister. The royal couple was nothing portrayed to the public, as the Empress provenly facilitated prostitution for the Emperor. Later in her life, the empress was spun into depression by her son’s death. Finally, her life ended in a well-known tragedy: she was assassinated by a young nationalist rebelling against the Austria-Hungary Kingdom. However, she might have survived if not for how much her tight corset on her boobs prevented her injury from being noticed promptly.
Therefore, whenever people spoke of the Empress, they treated her like a goddess, a martyr. She is remembered as the beautiful queen who traveled the land and won Hungary’s heart for her husband, the heartbroken mother who poured her unfulfilled love for her late son to the people, and a gem lost too soon in history’s turmoil. Until Corsage took a spin on her story and showed us a different side, a human side of the legendary Empress Sisi.
In Theory of the Leisure Class, the author indicated that women are the ultimate form of vicarious waste. They are the trophy that represents their husbands’ success, power, and wealth, and any trace of labor, suffering or even functionality is unbecoming. Their job is to socialize and be pretty. After all, they’re the face of their men and their family names.
So, what happens when the face ages?
Sisi’s torment in Corsage began when she turned forty. Officially recognized as an old woman, the Empress began to desperately grasp onto what defined her self-worth and identity: her youth, her beauty, and her ability to attract men. In the meantime, her rebellious spirit detests the confinement of the royal palace and continues to find ways to challenge and mock the system that reduced her value to nothing but a pretty ornament.
Different from the old trilogy, Corsage is a magnifying glass focused on the delicate psyche of Empress Sisi before she became the heroine adored by nation after nation. Weaving multiple struggles into one, the movie casts light on the royal woman’s struggle with her identity as a mother, an empress, a woman, and an individual with natural needs and desires. And after trying every possible solution, from seeking validation from attractive bystanders, including her gay cousin, to replicating the asylum’s anti-depression therapy, the Empress chopped off her long, beautiful braids — the symbol of her beauty, and left for a voyage.
In this movie, the Empress is not so perfect at all. Instead, we see a miserable, hysterical woman desperately trying to grasp her fleeting youth while struggling to find new value in herself. If you find yourself secretly calling the Empress a crazy bitch, don’t worry: you’re not alone.
At times, she is the self-centered mother who drags her little girl out of bed at dawn break to go on a horseback ride because she wants to show the princess how she can live freely, disregarding the fact her daughter would much prefer to sleep in a warm bed, then resulting in the little girl catching a cold. Other times, she is the melancholic, self-pitying woman living miserably in an empty castle, picking fights with everyone around her, and only finding connection and comfort from the patients in the mental asylum.
As the movie unfolds, I can’t help but relate to the maddening restriction and suppression the Empress went through. The slow pace layered on the audience like soaked paper sheets, one after another until it’s impossible to breathe. While we see the absurdity in many of the Empress’ behaviors, we also hear her desperate scream: I’m here, look at me. See me for who I am beyond youth, grace, and beauty.
At the end of the movie, the Empress, now stripped of her cumbersome royal gown and excessively long hair, walks over the deck and steps into the ocean. Did she die? If we were to follow the actual history, then the answer is no. If we were to consider Corsage a fictional piece, then we could see this as a suicide. Regardless, the ending marked the death of the miserable woman whose identity was the mere production of an obsolete system where a woman’s only value was to please. And judging by the look of relief and liberty before she flew into the water, we know a new identity was born as she stepped over the borderline.
In conclusion, Corsage is a delicately crafted historical fiction with all the visual elements needed to appeal to a long-time period film lover. In the meantime, the movie took a tender approach to the conversation of gender roles and women’s self-worth. If you loved Little Woman, The Beauty Queen of Leenane, and Mrs. Warren’s Profession, you’ll fully enjoy Corsage’s daring, honest, and heart-strutting storytelling.
