whain Reviews

Corsage (2022)

A complete historical nonsense and stupid

[1/10 · 4 November 2022]

This film is complete historical nonsense and stupid. The Emperor plucks off his fake beard, the Empress walks around puffing on cigarettes and showing the middle finger. She bangs on the table and doesn't act imperial at all. That is not at all the nature of the true Empress "Sisi". She was rather shy, reserved and spoke very softly. If she wasn't happy with something, she just walked away or didn't go at all. The film is supposed to show the aging Empress who, at the age of 40, is no longer an ideal of beauty. At that time, however, it was still very popular and quite handsome. It was the time of the riding stays in England and Ireland where, as is well known, she had received great admiration from the local community - especially from Bay Middleton, one of the best riders.

She was also physically and mentally fit. The director of that film Marie Kreutzer says: "My aim was to tell a story within the facts that could have been like this." A resounding no! As she shows the Empress she definitely wasn't and she couldn't have been like that either. The Empress didn't smoke! It all comes from mix-ups and rumours. None of her close contemporaries reported that she has smoked. On the contrary! Her niece Marie Wallersee-Larisch writes in her memoirs: "And all four were sunk in huge leather armchairs. We were even allowed to smoke, with the exception of the Empress, of course" (Empress Elisabeth and I). That was in 1884 in the Amstel Hotel in Zaandvort/Amsterdam.

Also the equipment in the film is not suitable as well as the costumes. Recently, many want to depict and interpret Empress Elisabeth in a "modern" way, but that is a falsification of history. It's a shame about the amount of money this film cost - something better could have been done with it, which would be urgently needed today in order to meet the claim of the true Empress among the "guild souls". Almost 125 years after her death, it would be time to make sure of that with a good historically correct film.

Kronprinz Rudolf (2006– )

The best elderly Empress

[9/10 · 4 November 2022]

Especially because of Sandra Ceccarelli we - my wife as a long year Sisi collector and Sisi-researcher and co-author with me for a book about the Empress - awarded nine stars. In our opinion, she is the best actress of the elderly Empress Elisabeth of Austria of all films ever made about her. There were also some good actresses - for example Daniela Ziegler. But Sandra Ceccarelli comes very close to the Empress in her appearance. She is also slim and slightly taller than the Emperor in the film, which is historically correct. Very well presented by Klaus Maria Brandauer. Marie was married to Count Larisch from 1877 to 1897 and was consequently a Countess Larisch at the time of the Mayerling tragedy. She played a bigger role in the affair than shown in the film. There was a heated conversation between Rudolf and Marie shortly before the double suicide. Rudolf wanted to send Mary away in Mayerling. He already had a carriage prepared for them. But Mary really wanted to stay. But Robert Dornhelm has made again a good historically movie. The movie is supposed to be an example for a good new film about the Empress Elisabeth, which nobody has managed to do since the Marischka trilogy "Sissi".

Post scriptum: There has also not been a film about Countess Larisch, born as Mendel, ennobled as Wallersee. She was Empress Elisabeth's favorite niece but fell out of favor with her because of the Mayerling affair and she rejected her.

Sissi - Die junge Kaiserin (1956)

This trilogy is not so wrong as often said

[9/10 · 23 October 2022]

This trilogy is not so wrong as often said. Sissi (correctly Sisi) does not fall in love with the Emperor, which is historically correct. She also does not want to become an Empress, which is also historically correct. Sisi actually had an idyllic childhood in Possenhofen. The language of the actors is historically correct - also the salutations in the third person. The character of Colonel Böckl is fictitious, but in 1882 a worried policeman actually pursued Sisi and she was often accompanied by police officers - albeit secretly at the Emperor's request. The Bavarian is correct as well as the "liver rhymes". The costumes are right; as well as hikes in the mountains. However, the real Sisi did not laugh as often as Romy Schneider. That's why you should correct some things and make a new trilogy or a new film based on Marischka's work - possibly up to the assassination in Geneva in 1898. And also show the political Sisi - she was a republican. "My dream ... the republic", she wrote in one of her poems (W. & R. Hain, Sisi Researcher, Vienna, Austria)

The Empress (2022– )

This series is complete historical nonsense.

[1/10 · 23 October 2022]

This series is complete historical nonsense. The Empress didn't smoke. Maximilian, Franz Joseph's brother, did not intercede against him. The costumes are terrible. Sisi didn't fall in love with the Emperor, he fell in love with her; she didn't want to be an Empress. The new series and films show a completely wrong image of the empress with some obscene and tasteless scenes. One wants to bring down the beautiful image of Romy-Schneider as Empress Sissi, which wasn't all that wrong. Ernst Marischka did a good job. You should redo this trilogy and improve it a bit. That would be the right historical film. You don't make a fictional film with historical events and historical people. This is falsification of history. We share many of the negative comments here about this series. It's a shame about the hassle and the money.

Post scriptum: A film called THE EMPRESS was already planned by Warner Bros. In 2014, but it didn't materialize due to disagreements about the implementation. In fact, there should be a new good and historically correct film about the Empress Elisabeth of Austria. We have been proposing this for a long time (W. & R. Hain, Sisi researcher und book authors, Vienna, Austria).