Despite being a heavily fictionalised feature film with many flaws, Crown Prince Rudolph’s last Love by Rudolf Jugert works. And it does so with a decidedly simple screenplay, which focuses first and foremost on the essentials without digressions and almost entirely devoid of subplots. Everything foreshadows an impending tragedy. The shadows get the better of the lights. Mary Vetsera’s naive face speaks for itself.
The Trapp Family, while suffering from an overly famous, spectacular and almost ‘cumbersome’ remake, undoubtedly has a well-defined personality. And despite having – obviously – many similarities with The Sound of Music (especially with regard to some of the dialogue), it turns out to be a little gem to be discovered.
Poetic images of tourists chatting and sunbathing aboard a boat, huge expanses of green, village people going about their daily business, and – last but not least – carefully curated, pastel-coloured cinematography are the trademarks of Donauballade, as well as of most documentaries like it produced in these years.
In Sissi – The Young Empress, the difficulty of making the film a success is immediately evident, as if Ernst Marischka, living off his previous work, was struggling to pick up the thread of a discourse that had been interrupted at a point when a sequel was not even necessary.