The Empress Season 1 Review: German Netflix Series That Tells The First Years At Court Of Elisabeth Of Bavaria
Cast: Devrim Lingnau, Philip Froissant, Svenja Jung, Rauand Taleb
Directed: Katrin Gebbe, Florian Cossen
Streaming Platform: Netflix
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 3.5/5 (three and a half star) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
As we will see in this review of The Empress, the new Netflix series German dedicated to Elisabeth instead wants to highlight the darker sides of her accession to the throne. Her love for Franz Joseph (here decidedly less smiling and much more brooding), remains overwhelming and in this case particularly passionate, but the problems of the first period at court for the couple are numerous. The attempt to seek greater historical relevance is evident – it is well known that Elisabeth, once she became empress, had a particularly difficult life, which even led to numerous health problems – but we do not give up on fictionalizing the story, inserting a series of intrigues and characters designed to move the situation and cause confusion, trying to make it even more attractive to today’s public.
There are historical figures who have always emanated a particular charm, who are remembered regardless of whether one is passionate about the study of the past. This popularity is partly due to how they have been portrayed in cinema and television, to how films and TV series have talked about their life, sometimes fictionalizing them and making them intriguing and exciting for audiences all over the world. Among these personalities, Elisabeth of Bavaria, also known as Sissi or more correctly Sisi, has been at the center of numerous entertainment products, among which perhaps the most famous and well-known is the one starring Romi Schneider. The one that opens with Princess Sissi, from 1955, is a trilogy in which the story of the young empress of Austria is transformed into a fairy tale with a happy ending, in which the marriage with the then emperor, played by an always smiling Karlheinz Böhm, is told as an indestructible and timeless love, even in the face of the rigidity of the rules of the Viennese court and the severe archduchess Sofia. Not quite what reality was if you know a little about the life of this unfortunate Bavarian noblewoman.
The Empress Season 1 Review: The Plot
Sisi (Devrim Lingnau) is a young noblewoman who shuns the rules imposed on her class and rejects all the suitors her mother presents to her. She prefers to run in the woods with her horse, ride barefoot and write poetry. Her mother, who even threatens to have her interned for her follies, decides, to better keep her under control, to take her to one of the summer residences of the Austrian court: there her sister will be asked in marriage by the young emperor after their two mothers (who are sisters) have planned the wedding. Things do not go according to plan and Franz Joseph (Philip Froissant) falls in love at first sight with the nonconformist Elisabeth and asks for her hand in general bewilderment.
From this moment the young woman’s life changed radically, arriving in Vienna for the wedding she was immediately sucked into the frenzy and the very strict rules of the court, managed with an iron fist by Archduchess Sofia, Franz’s mother. Elisabeth’s free spirit immediately feels suffocated in repetitive and monotonous days, in which the only value given to her by her peers is that of the mother of the future heir to the throne. The only glimmer of joy is the love for Franz, deep and passionate, who however is constantly put to the test by the machinations of the court. Intrigues are consummated around the royal couple, and discontented people gather in revolt at the gates of the palace; as if that weren’t enough, a war with Russia seems to be inevitable.
The Empress Season 1 Review and Analysis
From the few premises we have given you about the plot, it is clear how The Empress, in just six episodes, puts a lot of flesh on the fire, making Elisabeth’s first period in Vienna full of events and criticalities. Having said that, however, the more the story progresses, the more evident some problems of rhythm in the script: certain moments seem a bit hasty, told with too much superficiality, and on the contrary, are exaggeratedly dragged, thus distancing the viewer from the narration. The choice to interrupt the story almost in media’s res, then, did not convince us particularly: the impression – even if the desire to structure the series over several seasons is clear – is in fact that the narrative arc of some characters – even of the main ones! – did not find the right conclusion.
It is immediately evident that we are in territories very far from the fairytale ones of other remakes of Elisabeth’s story; here the atmosphere is immediately very gloomy, in some cases almost bleak, as if she suggests that – even if the young woman is having happy moments with her new husband – her future is anything but rosy. So removing the intrigues and plots designed to make the story more captivating in the eyes of today’s viewer, what remains is a raw and realistic portrait of the life of a noblewoman of the time, enclosed between rules and constraints and whose sole value depended on his ability to have children. Elisabeth’s story is charged with a strong sense of tragedy and, even if in just six episodes what is told of her life is very limited, one can already foresee the bitter future that awaits the protagonist. Even if Franz Jospeh and Elisabeth are united by a strong feeling the world they live in will never allow them to live it as they would like.
Young Devrim Lingnau, who plays Elisabeth, is very good at conveying the different souls that coexist in her character. The free spirit who would like to be able to decide how to live her life, the immature child who is unhappy with how things are going, and the woman in love with her, who would also like to meet the expectations that others have for her. The portrait that she makes of her empress of her is multifaceted and multifaceted, and for this very reason at times particularly fascinating. The surrounding cast ends up being overshadowed by Lignau, but the archduchess Sophie of Melika Foroutan, Maximilian, the brother of the emperor, played by Johannes Nussbaum, and Almila Bagriacik, a young conspirator who introduces herself, stand out. at court in the role of Duchess Leontine Von Apafi. The subplots of Maximilian and Leontine are interesting, on the one hand, a second discontented son who would finally like to excel and who begins to feel something precisely for those who are forbidden to him, on the other a revolutionary driven by the need to help his people, but who finds himself little by little to his enemy.
Among the undisputed merits of The Empress are the settings and costumes, which are enchanting for how they are treated in detail. Also in this case – especially as regards the costumes – there is on the one hand a certain interest in historical reconstruction, on the other hand, the modern taste enriches the lines of the time, giving space to cuts, laces, and transparencies that perhaps do not we would have found in the strict Viennese court. Putting aside historical fidelity, however, The Empress is a real pleasure for the eyes: not only the clothes but also the opulent locations, confirm that behind this series there was an impressive production effort, which gave life to the screen to a rich, grandiose and flashy reality, capable of transporting the viewer into a world and a distant time.
The Empress Season 1 Review: The Last Words
The Empress is an interesting and engaging series, which on the one hand seeks historical accuracy, on the other adapts to the taste of the contemporary audience. Convincing the protagonist and really impressive costumes and settings, are too bad for some rhythm problems, especially in the central episodes.
