Vicky Krieps – The Magnificent 60s

I half-expected paparazzi to leap out from behind bushes such was the anachronistic tone of this tale of royal entitlement and female repression. But I’m glad the plagiarism issues surrounding Kris Kristofferson and The Rolling Stones have been cleared up now that it’s been revealed that “Help Me Make It Through The Night” and “As Tears Go By” were originally composed in 1878 for mandolin and harp, respectively.

Empress Elisabeth of Austria lived such a hellish life it’s small wonder she committed suicide 20 years earlier than the history books dictated. Even the invention of the motion picture by an obscure photographer in 1878 – a decade before others made probably spurious claims to have come up with the idea – wasn’t enough to keep her going.

*The Empress gives historical accuracy the finger.*

The real Empress Elisabeth, now that I’ve had to go and look her up, actually did correspond somewhat to the character represented her. She was obsessed with beauty and diet, the exceptionally tight corsets of the title self-inflicted as she strove to keep a 16-19-inch waist. Quite where this kind of mania came from is never explained. Her general depression could have been traced to the death of a daughter but that doesn’t figure in this bold reimagining. I’ve got nothing against movie makers twisting facts for their own convenience, Hollywood did it all the time so why should arthouses audiences escape. But I spent half the time watching this wondering whether anything was real, which would make the whole enterprise some kind of dreamlike experience and would mean she didn’t risk a daughter’s life by exposing her to the freezing cold in the middle of the night because she, the Empress, had a penchant for darkness she wanted the child to learn to embrace.

In some kind of nod to Absolutely Fabulous, it is the child who appears the more grown-up, admonishing her mother for embarrassing her. And in a nod to whatever the Empress gives the middle finger. And naturally she gets hooked on heroin (don’t ask).

Anyway, enough of my moaning, let’s go back to the movie and assume it’s all got a point. Hating her empty life, the Empress exerts authority by feigning a fainting fit to avoid royal duties, keeps her devoted husband waiting, fancies like mad a cousin she doesn’t know is gay, is considered such a suicide risk by the prospective lover that he prohibits her from drowning in his lake.

She is indulged as much as is humanly possible, permitted to take off on her travels at a whim, but attempts to improve the welfare of institutionalised women – some committed for adultery – and visits wounded soldiers (all true, as it happens). While her husband is devoted to her (true), that is not reciprocated (true) and out of kindness she arranges for him to take a young lover (fiction).

This is a movie devoid of drama, determined, as if below the dignity of an arthouse filmmaker, to ignore some of the real facts of her life, namely the complicated politics of the era, clashes with her domineering mother-in-law, that her son Rudolf was the subject of the Mayerling tragedy and that she was assassinated by an anarchist in Italy.

If the point is to show she was an accomplished woman in an era when queens were doormats and submissive wives, that aim is certainly achieved. Elisabeth, beyond keeping her husband waiting at every opportunity, openly argues with him, is a very competent fencer, could have written a book on eating (a Dieting DVD introduced into the proceedings would have been an anachronistic tour de force) as little as possible and the benefits of a healthy regimen.

As a portrait of a complex character it is certainly compelling and as the enigmatic is a tool of the artist, then little in the way of explanation is deemed necessary. But the problem, setting aside the anachronisms, is what we are presented with is a cross between Princess Di and Meghan.

Vicky Krieps (Old, 2021) plays the Empress. Marie Kreutzer (The Ground Beneath My Feet, 2019) wrote the screenplay and directed.

But you should be aware my views are very much in the minority and this has largely been acclaimed.

Surely no director has cut his cloth according to his means more than M. Night Shyamalen. After a series of big-budget failures, he returned with a series of low-budget numbers like The Visit (2015) and Split (2016) with a couple of forays into television to keep his hand in. And although his movies sometimes don’t work, usually from over-ambition, he is still a brand name and as a triple-hyphenate one of the few working directors to completely control his output.

So the starting point is you don’t know what you’re going to get, except there will be twists and occasional shocks along the way. Even the Glass films aren’t a trilogy in the accepted sense of the word.

Old is a neat idea. A group of strangers on vacation end up on a strange beach where time moves along at quite a clip and they can’t escape. Most of the action involves the characters responding to one calamity after another and despite a couple of gruesome moments Shyamalan seems intent on swapping jump-out-of-your-seat moments for a continual slow burn. He takes the disaster trope of who’s gonna die next – the bad old guy or the cute younger person – and inverts it until nothing makes any sense except impending apocalypse, at least for all stranded in this apparent paradise.

Speeded-up life makes for speeded-up dread. While wounds heal in seconds and pregnancy might last, oh, a half hour or so, the malfunctioning body malfunctions at lightspeed.

The great thing about Shyamalan is he is a writer first so the characters here are all very well drawn. He gives a geeky kid the geekiest of all character traits, going up to everyone he meets to ask their name and job. But it’s an ensemble picture so nobody is more important than anybody else. And the characters bring along a hamper full of tensions – there’s an epileptic, a couple on the verge of divorce, a doctor on the verge of a breakdown. He also has a distinctive visual style, preferring to track the camera from one character to another rather than using cuts.

It slightly runs out of steam as the body count mounts and it might have been an idea to introduce the shock ending – which asks significant questions about the direction society is heading – a bit sooner

There’s a solid cast, good actors rather than A-list stars, a bundle of whom are best-known for television. Gael Garcia Bernal (The Motorcycle Diaries, 2004) takes pole position in the credits, supported by Rufus Sewell (The Man in the High Castle television series, 2015-2019), Luxembourg actress Vicky Krieps (Das Boot, 2018- 2020), Ken Leung (Lost, 2008-2010), and Abbey Lee (Lux Aeterna, 2019). Scions of Hollywood royalty get a leg-up here – Francesca Eastwood being the daughter of Clint and Alexa Swinton cousin to Tilda – and there are cameos from the likes of Embeth Davidtz (Schindler’s List, 1993)

Otherwise it’s a decent addition to the Shyamalen oeuvre, enough at least to keep him chugging along until he gets the next big idea or budget. While the chances of him alighting on another Sixth Sense (1999) or Unbreakable (2000) might appear remote bear in mind the guy has barely passed 50, an age when top directors are just coming into their prime – Hitchcock was a few years older when he hit the hot streak of Rear Window, Vertigo and North by Northwest.

There’s a fair chance the ending is uncomfortably close to science fact rather than fiction and if Shyamalan can activate social media along those lines the picture could build up enough of a head of steam to bring the director back into the big-budget Hollywood fold or ensure at least that he is never cast aside.

Saw this at the cinema as part of my Monday double bill. – but on the previous week to Suicide Squad/Jungle Cruise.

Tag: Vicky Krieps

Corsage (2022) **

Old (2021) *** – Seen at the Cinema