#in case you didnt watch elisabeth

[a-court-of-moonlight-and-ire]

Ive complained about this before, Rhysand being known as Death Incarnate because he kills a lot of people i guess makes no fucking sense, its just this forced attempt to make acomaf and feysand feel more like a hades/persephone type thing and I know its an incredibly minor detail and Im petty for caring so much about such an insignificant little detail, but idc it pisses me off and Im gonna kill someone for no reason, and then you all get to call me death incarnate

Anyway, for some fucking reason my brain started storming some nicknames/titles for Rhysand that piss me off less, and I ended up on Death's Lover as something that makes way more sense for a guy who doesnt actually seem to have any death-related powers and is just kinda a guy who kills a lot of people and then that made me think of my current obsession, Elisabeth: das Musical wherein they have this guy

as the personification of death and now Im kinda rotating the idea of Rhys/this specific portrayal of death in my mind cuz its like. idk, in the musical hes also a personification of suicidal thoughts and dread and other very bad feelings and I think itd be neat to have him around Rhys as a manifestation of his guilt over all his "morally gray" actions as well as a manifestation of how a ton of people die in the night court every day through his inaction and then they almost kiss, but only almost cuz you can only kiss Death when youre dying and Rhysand is very alive

honestly, i just need Rhys to be more affected by his guilt in order to stop hating him bc rn its like. okay so, in my humble opinion, if SJM wanted Rhysand to be a fun cocky flirty bastard he shouldve been a guy who had little to no qualms with the morally gray shit hes doing, like he thinks its all worth it and justified and he doesnt worry about it too much, and if SJM wanted him to be an edgy boi who did morally gray things because he thought that was the best course of action at the time but is now all angsty about it he should be actively being eaten alive by guilt in acomaf. But SJM wanted both, so now hes this insufferable combination where hes a cocky flirty bastard most of the time and then whenever he does something fucked up or Feyre brings up some fucked up shit he did in the past, he suddenly starts projecting all the guilt hes ever felt over anything (and his trauma that otherwise doesnt seem to affect him) which really makes it feel like hes being manipulative, but its clearly not being done on purpose and Feyre just takes him at face value so its just fucking annoying

Anyway, i kinda lost track of what this post was even supposed to be. tldr: i hate rhys but he has some potential, i think he should get his slutty little waist grabbed by death and I think they should do some Mayerling Walzer shit together

[lunatic-fandom-space]

Le Drame de Mayerling (1964) [The Drama of Mayerling]

The first movie I watch after my little hiatus and its the one in a language I dont speak and that doesnt have any subtitles available and also its not technically a film I guess, its an episode of an anthology show called 'La Caméra Explore le Temps' ['The Camera Explores Time'] but its two hours long so whatever, its close enough.

Since I wasnt able to understand any of the dialogue, like with Erzsébet királyné (1940), I dont think Im able to properly judge it right now so I plan on doing a re-review on this as well once someone uploads subtitles in a language that I can understand. Although me not understanding the dialogue didnt present nearly as much of an issue here as it did while watching Erzsébet királyné (1940) because this film didnt really have a unique plot, it was just Rudolf and Mary's relationship and then their double-suicide at the end, like all the other Rudolf-films Ive seen so far. That being said, it did seem like it was doing some stuff differently than most of the other ones, like Stephanie played a bigger role than usual (sidenote, its insane to me that she barely appears much less matters in all these films, like I get that they werent on good terms but that was his WIFE??), Elisabeth had more screentime and from what I could gather, she and Franz Joseph were meddling in Rudolf and Mary's relationship before he decides to put an end to it, which has not been the case in the other films, usually their relationship much fine and no one really has anything to say about it until Rudolf decides to request a divorce from the pope. I also felt like it was structured a bit differently, like, in most of the other films Rudolf and Mary hanging out at Mayerling before they kill themselves takes up around twenty minutes towards the end of the film and then it ends once Rudolf is dead, but here I think they get there about an hour into the movie and then we see Elisabeth getting the news and telling Franz Joseph.

So yeah, those things were all pretty neat and they do intrigue me and make me yearn for some subtitles but there but it didnt seem like this one had any kind of political plotline which makes me go "okay nvm, I think Im good for now" since the political stuff is what I tend to find the most interesting. I mean, dont get me wrong, if any of you end up making or finding subtitles for this episode in either german or english, please send them my way, but yknow. Im not desperate to understand it or anything, unlike Erzsébet királyné (1940).

Thats pretty much all I have to say right now, theres just two last things that I couldnt fit into the main post organically:

I really hated Rudolf in this for some reason, I think it was something about the actor who played him, he came across as really smug and I just wanted to punch him

I looked up La Caméra Explore le Temps before watching this to see if it was worth watching as part of this little project and I ended up translating parts of this series' wikipedia page since theres very little non-french information about it online, and it said that episodes range from 60 minutes to (i believe) 180 minutes and I was like "good god pleaseeeeeee tell me Le Drame de Mayerling is only 60 minutes, i am sick and tired of these rudolf-films i dont think I could stand to watch one thats that long" and then I found out that it was two hours long and I just wanted to scream. I mean, it didnt end up being that bad and Im not dreading any of the other films on my list like that (even though I know one of them is three hours long), I think I just had that reaction because the similar-ness of them really got to me after a while

[seven-for-president]

RFA (including Saeran and V) reacting to MC who loves Yaoi? :)

Oh my God I´m just so excited to write this o(^▽^)o

_Yoosung_

° Yoosung was at your house to help you get your things for the sleepover at his parent´s

° he knew you were sort of an otaku, so he wasn´t suprised to find a bookshelf filled with mangas over mangas

° he himself only read some including his favourite LOLOL characters

° (I guess some sort of doujinshii)¯\_(ツ)_/¯

° “Hey MC, can I borrow a manga from your shelf?”

° “Sure go ahead. But don´t make a mess.”

° as every good fujoshi you kept your most precious copys in the very back of said shelf

° it was a habit Yoosung also hold ¯\_ʘᗜʘ_/¯

°  NOT good….

° “Hey MC what is this about?”

° you looked around and to your suprise he was showing you the cover of Ten Count No.5 (it´s the latest one available in my coutry XD)

° your emergency-yaoi-bells rang and you tried to take it away from him

° “Give that back you won´t like it, trust me!”

° but he held it out of your reach when did this brat get so damn tall?

° “Why do you want to hide it that badly MC?”

° “Because of reasons!” (;¬_¬)

° he then did the unavoidable and opend the book

° of course it was not a page with Shirotani and Kurose talking

° and of course it wasn´t one with Kurose in his childhood either

° it was one of those pages

°  if you want to know to what I´m reffering to please check out Ten Count chapter 27/28  o((*^▽^*))o

° with a bam he dropped the book on the grounf, now red as a certain character involved in the manga

° “M-MC, what is that? Don´t tell me all of theese contain such….. acts??”

° he was the definition of embarassment becoming alive at this point

° ���No they´re not! You just had to pick one from the back, hadn´t you?”

° if you say it like that it sounds as if he´s at fault here…

° “I´m so sorry I won´t ever take one from the back again.”

° this poor boy is now shocked for live ヽ(＊>∇

° but hey MC can like what she wants anyway XD

° sometimes you have to learn the hard way Yoosung….

_Jaehee_

° Finalyyyy~ your long awaited package arrived~

° you said good bye to the postman and now held a big box full of new Yaoi-Mangas in your hands

° BEST.DAY.EVER!!

° as you opend the box the one copy you´ve waited for forever to be realeased in korea happen to be on top

° so why wait when you can enjoy it now  o(≧∇≦o)

° it was called The right way to write Love

° (personally I really enjoyed reading it)

° after your precious box was carefully put away under the bed of course you settled down on the couch and began reading

° when you finished the first story you were almost crying from all the sweetness    ⊂（♡⌂♡）⊃

° but the following one…. dear god forgive me for I have sinned for reading that

° let´s just say the focus was set on interhuman interactions and by interaction I mean in a physical way

° to summarise: it wasn´t something you would want your parents to see             ｡(*^▽^*)ゞ

° unfortunate she´s Mommy-Jaehee

° since it felt quiet alone in the house you turned on the TV to have some noises

° because of these noises you didn´t hear the door opening and Jaehee calling out for you

° your faced away from the door so you didn´t see her entering the living either

° “Hello, what are you reading MC.”

° because you´re a real fujoshi and your entire focus was on reading physical-gay-interaction (if you know what I mean) it was like she´s talking to a wall

° so she decided to just take a look at what captured your attention so much that you didnt notice her

° bad mistake….( ≧Д≦)

° “My gosh MC what are you reading? What are they even doing??!!”

° to say it was the shock of her life was an understatement XD

° you screamed. she screamen. the girl on TV screamed

° as quick as you could you closed the page and hid the book behind you

° blood was running from her nose and it resembled the colour of her cheeks

° “Let´s just not talk about this again. Ever!”

° a nod was all you could manage to do while going to your room and laughing like a mad man  ｡(*^▽^*)ゞ

_Zen_

° as always Zen was out off the house to practice his new play

° for you this meant you´ve got some special freetime which you always dedicate to your secret Yaoi-obsession

° this means: singing openings, watching anime, reading manga and fanfiction and of course and liking tons of fanart

° as your anime of the day you selected the masterpiece Junjou Romantica, season one

° while watching (let´s just assume MC is such a big fan she understands japanese) you also read the mangas because why the heck not ? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

° you  know how the second episode ends? Misaki quitting Virgin-Cub

° the same Thing happend in the manga, just a BIT more detailed

° you started hearing the intro-song for the 3rd time this day and couldn´t resist singing along

° while singing you kept the page you were currently reading open, to continue anytime

° but while singing and constantly turning the volume up the arrival of a certain actor remained unnoticed

° he always thought it was simply impossible to not notice him, but there you were, singing some catchy tune and reading some book

° his abnormal bid ego just couldn´t bear that….(҂⌣̀_⌣́)

° it was logical to him to pay you back for that

° standing behind you he coverd your eyes and took a look at the page infront of him

° remember what I said about the manga having more detail?

° you tried to struggle free and hide everything but it was to late

° “MC, what is happening there?”

° fuck, he saw

° “Eh…. you know, when two peoplelove each other they do interactions on a physical level..”

° “I know that! But These are dudes MC, dudes!”

° “Do you want me to become gay?”

° “What? No, of course not Zen.”

° is it to much to expect people to accept your likings? Yes? ok then I said nothing

° you had to explain a LOT to him but in the end he kind of accepted you liking this genre?

° still a bit disgusted tho

° but to distract you from this stuff he walks around shirtless a lot more than he did before, and to show you that he looks a dozen times better than those men    ( ° ʖ °)

_Jumin_

° you had to be careful, very careful…

° because every package that arrived was controlled by one of the security members

° that meant you couldn´t just order Yaoi-Merch online like you used to as a single

° the consequence was that you had to buy all of this stuff either at a shop or ask one of your friends to order it for you

° today you went out shopping and to your luck you were able to do that without any guards following you

° this was the perfect opportunity to stock up on mangas o(≧∇≦o)

° you returned to the penthouse with a bag full of precious new babys for your collection

°  back home, Elisabeth joined you on the big couch where all of the copys layed in a big mess

° she just purred like she didn´t care XD

° 1 houre later you already finished the first 2 volumes of Sekaii ichi Hatsokoi and started with the 3rd

° (if you wonder it´s the case of Onodera Ritsu No. 5)

° you looked at the clock and to your relief there was still an hour left till Jumin will come back

° so you cleaned up the mess you created, planning to continue reading after you´ve finished

° unfortunately you left the book on the couch with Elisabeth

° what was even more unfortunate, Jumin´s last meeting was canceled and to suprise you he didn´t send a text to warn you

° as you put the last bok away in the shelf you heard a scream, Jumin´s scream

° “ MC what is this Piece of junk doing here!?”

° no need to say it like that…¯\_(⌣̯̀⌣́)_/¯  

° “Jumin don´t shout like that you´ll scare Elisabeth.”

° rushing to the living room the worst case scenario already has happend

° he was reading the damn book, right on the page where you left of

° Takano forcing himself on Ritsu once again

° “Jumin, give me back my book, please.”

° to your suprise rather than angry or disgusted he looked more confused

° Thank God!

° “MC why would you read something like that? Do I not satisfy you enough?”

° great now he looked hurt.. but still this is way better than angry

° “What are you talking about? This has nothing to do with you Jumin I just enjoy reading it.”

° he looked like a little confused kid and than did the last thing you´ve expected

° “Jumin! What are you doing put me down this instant!!”

° “No.”

° apparently he had to make sure he still satisfied you for the rest of the day

° so it wasn´t even that bad that he foudn out about your no longer secret hobby

_Saeyoung/Seven_

° I saved the most strange one for him XD

° when he did the background-check on you he also took a look at your online orders

° and there he thought he already was the biggest Fujoshi Queen King…           (╬ Ò ‸ Ó)

° this being a critical hit on his ego he made up his mind to pay you back one day

° after you moved in with Seven and Saeran you stopped ordering online and bought every book your heart desired in the local bookstore

° because you just knew Seven would tease you nonstop if he found out about that obsession of yours

° little did you know Special-Agent 707 already had his masterplan ready…

° when you came back he wasn´t on his Computer, which was very unusual° instead he sat infront of the TV and it looked like he was waiting for you to return

° “Hey Seven what´re you doing here?”

° “Good you´re back I was waiting for you to come back and watch some anime with me.”

° you didn´t exactly know why but you already had a bad Feeling about this

° “Everytime we watch something it´s either disgusting or disturbing.”

° I´m only dropping the words Euphoria and Corpse Party here

° “But MC~ I know you´ll enjoy it this time.”

° Oh God this sounds so wrong

° you gave your okay to watch whatever it was with him

° but when you heard the first tune of the opening theme, you instantly knew what was going on

° but since you watched every freaking Yaoi, even if it was very strange/disturbing you were prepared

° personally, Ai no Kusabi disturbed me XD

° you somehow had the idea he already knew about you passion, so why not do the worst Thing to a Fujoshi? Spoiler

° “Did you know that they´ll cut Ricky´s dick off?”

° “WHAT??”

° he was shocked, and let me tell you to shock him is an Action worth a nobelprice

° MC used Spoiler, it was super-effective

° as if faced Medusa he was now turned to stone

° this means it was MC´s victuuriory

° he stayed like this until Saeran did the ice-bucket challenge to him XD

_V_

° he´s blind so I thought why not write about Drama CDs

° V had an appointment at the doctors to look after his eyes

° you stayed home because Jumin wanted to accompany him very desperately

° being a goog girlfriend you of course let him do that

° for you it meant that you could listen to your new CD over the sound system and without headphones

° said CD was called Kuroneko Kareshi no Nakasekata ( it means something like black cat´s boyfriend to cry for I think..) 

° because of V´s eyesight-situation he decided to focus on his other senses a lot more and invested in one of the best sound systems

° this was to your joy once again o(*≧□≦)o

° you didn´t understand much, but it didn´t matter to you since you were reading the translations at the same time

° did I mention it was really loud and you didn´t notice anything else? Good, Keep that in mind for now

°  one of the things that remained unnoticed was V entering the house

° the first thing he heardwas some strange, male moaning

° he thought you would be cheating an was on the edge of tears

° poor V(︶︹︺)

° but then there was another moaning, also from a male person and this seemed very strange to him

° he entered the livingroom, still unnoticed by you

° you then noticed him because he closed the door a LITTLE to loud which caused you to turn around in shock

° as quick as you could you turnd the sound system off to stop those noises

° “Oh, hey V. Is your appointment finished already? I used the System..”

° you were more than just relived that he didn´t bring Jumin with him in the flat

° “Listen, we won´t talk about that but if this is yout hobby than I won´t say anything. Just don´t let me hear it again OK?” 

° you gave your ok and hurried into the kitchen do prepare the dinner

° by this time V´s head and yours were as red as the tomatoes you were currently cutting

_Saeran_

° his brother dragged him away to do some fishing to “deepen their brotherly-bond”¯\_(ツ)_/¯

° that meant you had finally time to play the game you purchased last week

° after getting comfortable on the couch and putting on some headphones for better sound you hit the start button of Dramatical Murder

° you started right away with Noize’s route

° and of course aimed for the best ending possible

° as you played or red to be more precisely, the hours flew by

° I played Amnesia (the otome-game) and it really took some time to finish a route

° so after you played for like 6 hours straight it finally payed off

° that meant the good parts came, and they weren’t the only thing that did

° if you know what I mean

° you already saw some of the CGs online but damn

° unlocking them yourself and hearing the voice actors while seeing it was way more satisfying (๑•̀ㅂ•́)و✧

° so satisfying that you, however that is possible, didn’t hear Seven screaming that they’re back

° when Saeran couldn’t hear an answer from you he immediately thought the worst

° you finaly leaving him because of how fucked up he is  .( ˃﹏˂̵ )

° don’t think that my poor, precious baby I love you ( ≧Д≦)

° so he was more than happy to see you sitting on the Couch with some headphones on

° “So that´s why she didn´t hear us…”

° of course it was unacceptable that you ignored him

° he had to pay you back for that, that was a sure thing

° so he wanted to see what was more important to you than him at the Moment

° as quiet as he could, he walked behind you to take a look at your Screen

° he didn´t like what he saw….

° the next things happend in only a few moments

° he placed your headphones somwhere els and turned off the handheld-consol you were playing on

° after that you remembered laying on your bed with Saeran ontop of you and already pulling at your shirt

° “MC you were a bad Girl for playing These naughty games. So for that you must be punished.”

° and he did. the whole night.

This was so fun writing I had the fun of my life o(*>ωAlthough I lost the document 2 times

I hope you like it and enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing o(^▽^)o

[a-court-of-moonlight-and-ire]

Hey! I feel like Ive been at this for a goddamn eternity so in an attempt to speed things up I shall read 3 chapters today, how exciting. Im motivating myself by telling me that Im gonna get to watch the 2007 Takarazuka Snow Troupe Production of Elisabeth when Im done, specifically my favorite song because. okay so, when I talk about watching any Takarazuka production of Elisabeth what I actually mean is, I have pretty much all the proshots and a bunch of english subtitle files, but theres not a subtitle file for every existing proshot, so for example, theres a subtitle file for the 1996 Star Troupe Production but not the 1996 Snow Troupe Production which isnt a big deal since the diaogue and lyrics are all the same, but you cant just put the Star subtitle file over the Snow video because itll be completely out of sync, so what I do is, I put the Star subtitles into my subtitle editor with the Snow video and I manually re-sync every line to create Snow subtitles, and while I do that Im effectively just watching my favorite musical over and over again except very slowly. So yeah, in case you were wondering what your favorite acotar complainer does for fun, now you know

Anyway, enough of my life, now its time for my liveblog, last time Feyre and Rhysand got ambushed by some of Hyberns soldiers and Rhys got shot atleast 7 times and kidnapped and tortured, but Feyre was fine and she saved him and she pulled all the arrows out of him and now hes probably gonna be perfectly fine. I know this isnt gonna affect him in any meaningful way, like his wings are gonna bd fine and his back isnt gonna hurt, but I do hope that he atleast suffers for the duration of the 3 chapters im gonna read because otherwise whats the point

Chapter 50

Rhysands wounds are only healing very slowly and hes got a fever, we're off to a good start

idk why but I really hate Feyre kissing him on the forehead. the narrative has not earned such a tender gesture

THE SURIEL 🎉🎉

Oh, i hadnt noticed this before but I like the alliteration we get with the german translation of Feyre Cursebreaker, Feyre Fluchbrecher. 10/10 very fun to say

its been ONE year since Feyre first came to Prythian, Sarah im begging you, please stop pointing out the passage of time youre activel making it harder for me to get invested in this stupid romange

They translate 'Mate' as 'Seelengefährte' ['Soulmate'] and oh, you have no idea how happy I am about that, this and the fact that they dont say male and female but just man and woman/masculine and feminine makes this series about a million times better, once again, thank you Alexandra Ernst

I dont understand why Feyre being Rhysands mate is such a big deal anyway, she didnt grow up in this culture, and pretty much all she has at this point is Tamlin's vague explanation of it being a bond that goes beyond marriage and the fact that his and Rhysand's parents, both infamously horrible couples, were mates

'"He is the most powerful High Lord to have ever walked the earth. You are... new. You were created by all seven High Lords. Different than anything that existed before you. Does that not make you the same? Equal?"' ewww i hate that. If this is supposed to be romantic somehow why would you make it all about power, why wouldnt the Suriel say smth like "You both suffered in the same ways. He is the is the only one to ever truly understand you"

But also. Rhysand and Feyre are not even the same though ? Like yeah, Rhys is powerful, but wasnt Feyre special because shes capital-m Made, which he is not? If the logic behind mates is the two people being 'the same' in some way, then Feyre should really be Amren's mate methinks

Im not gonna lie, Feyre angrily forcing Rhys to drink her blood is pretty hot

'Deep down I hated myself for speaking to him like this.' No girl dont hate yourself, this is the first time in over 600 pages Ive found the feysand dynamic even remotely compelling

'I stared at him, this Illyrian half-blood whose soul was bound to mine.' what the hell? Top Ten Feyre Archeron Racist Moments

This mf really told his cousin and his weird freaky eldritch creatures whose apartment he pays for that he and Feyre are mates before he told Feyre

I just zoned out thinking about a version of Feysand where Feyre is basically constantly telling Rhys stuff like 'youre just a burden' or whatever she said during that one argument because shes starting to figure out his weak spots the more time she spends with him and she wants to like, break him emotionally as revenge for UTM and Rhysand doesnt do anything about it because he just represses all his emotions and he cant just stop spending time with her because theyre mates and he feels like he needs to be close to her all the time. Idk, abusive relationships have been my favorite angst fanfic premise lately

Its so wild how Feyre is super angry with Rhys for keeping the mating bond from her when literally everyone else already knew and not only is he gonna do the exact same thing with the baby in acosf, Feyre is just gonna be fine with it then even though its arguably much much worse

Chapter 51

Okay so I guess Cassian, Azriel and Mor have just been hanging out in Rhysand's warcamp house, do they not have anything better to do

god i wish being all pathetic laying in the dirt was Rhysand's default state instead of him always being the manliest man to ever man

Oh, so I guess Mor used to get locked up in this cabin in the middle of nowhere whenever she 'misbehaved'. you would think she'd have more sympathy for Nesta in acosf but from everything ive seen.....

this chapter was extremely short

I completely forgot that this book was split into parts, i guess its The House of Mist time now

Chapter 52

god the anachronistic clothing in this series is gonna be the death of me, why is feyre always wearing leggings and a cremecolored swester istg

Full offense, but if the mating bond is soooooo much stronger than marriage, Rhysand should not have been earnestly worried about Feylin getting married

This part where Feyre is relieved because it turned out that her relationship with Tamlin was always doomed to fail because she had a soulmate is pretty interesting, but it also feels like complete bullshit for reasons that Im struggling to articulate

I would just like to reiterate that I am so relieved that they just call it soulmates in the german version, I cannot imagine how insufferable this must be to read in english

Feyre started painting again hoorayyyyyyy. i feel like this wouldve been more impactful if she wasnt constantly thinking about wanting to paint whatever she sees, but hey

I actually think this part where Mor comes in and just goes around complimenting all the stuff Feyre painted everywhere is quite nice, I think i would enjoy it more if this whole story wasnt pissing me off rn

waiiiiiit ive never seen people talk about Mor's mother even though shes apparently alive and well, whats their relationship? Whats her role at the CoN if Mor is supposed to be the queen of the Hewn City??

Mor being like "Rhysand gave me his permission to kill my abusers but I dont do it even though I have pretty much no reason not to, but Cassian and Azriel really want to do it and would do it without hesitation so maybe I'll let them do it" is somehow a perfect summary of SJM's shallow wannabe feminism

Feyre still barely understands the relationships between individual members of the inner circle but sure, theyre the family she never had

[lunatic-fandom-space]

Elisabeth Kaiserin von Österreich (1972) [Elisabeth Empress of Austria]

This was kind of a weird one, but I really liked it!

The thing that was weird was that this felt way more like a documentary than a film, even though Wikipedia specifically lists it as a film on Elisabeth's page and not in the section with the documentaries, which is why it ended up on my list of Sissi-media, but it doesnt really feel enough like a documentary for me to call it that. Like, it has these sections with narration over montages of paintings and historical photographs where its just some guy recounting various battles and political decrees and what people at the time thought of them, but it also has actors playing Elisabeth, Franz Joseph and everyone else whos relevant in scenes that dont really feel like reenactments, its kinda weird, Ive never seen anything like this. The ending credits call it a 'Dokumentarspiel' which means something along the lines of 'dramatized documentary', and I think that's a very fitting term for it.

Because of that, it didnt really have much of a story and I feel like I cant really talk about this film the way I talked about the others. Like, it's basically just sober recountings of major historical events interspersed with somewhat relevant anecdotes from Elisabeth's life and then towards the end we get less of the historical events as she withdrew from politics and public life, and it doesnt really elicit a lot of emotion from me, which is what I prefer. But I mean, I thought it engaging and that it painted a very interesting picture of Elisabeth. And it was nice getting some actual information for once, Ive mentioned before that I really dont know anything about history and Ive been trying to steer clear of treating anything that's portrayed in any of these films as factual because obviously the people making them are going to take creative liberties for the sake of making a cohesive story, but it doesnt seem like that was the case here. It really makes me want to watch more documentaries, I think I might do something something similar to this project in the future, where I look for a bunch of documentaries and watch them in chronological order, that could be interesting. I probably wouldnt write reviews for those though

Anyway, lets talk about the other stuff. The editing was mostly fine, it was just a bit weird during some of the historical events-segments but it wasnt a big deal. The pacing was good too, given that there wasnt much of a story or a throughline (other than Elisabeth as a person i guess) I think it could have become meandering and feel like a bit of a drag, but it didnt. Although to be fair, this film was on the shorter side, its only 80 minutes. The only part that really dragged on was the scene of Elisabeth and Franz Joseph being crowmed king and queen of Hungary, they show the whole slow ceremony and it was very boring.

And if I'm already talking about scenes that kinda bother me, Elisabeth's assassination was very strange. Like, it shows her and Lucheni walking toward each other at the docks in geneva and it keeps cutting back and forth between them as they both walk at a brisk but measured pace, until he suddenly starts running and then he kindof skids to a halt on his knees right in front of her and quickly stabs her before running off. Elisabeth doesnt really react and the woman who's with her is like "oh no, what happened, are you hurt" but she says it in such a mild way, they straightup did not notice that she got stabbed. So yeah, Elisabeth tells her that everything is fine, shes just a bit shocked and she thinks that guy just puched hef, and she just. keeps walking. The woman is like "are you really sure youre not hurt" and she goes "ah, you know, now that you mention it, I guess Im in a little bit of pain" and she starts trailing off and then collapses. So thats it. Im guessing this was based on like, the real life testimony of the woman who was with her and eye witness reports and all that but still, what a series of events huh.

And last but not least, the actors were all okay. I think they couldve all been better but they werent bad or anything. I will say though, something about Marisa Mell as Elisabeth bothered me, I think its the fact that they start this film off with a bunch of paintings and photographs of her and then Marisa Mell just looks nothing like her. Especially when you compare that to how Peter Fröhlich actually does look quite a bit like Franz Joseph does in the paintings, just less prettyboy-ey and also hid eyes arent so blue and scary. And I mean, the actresses they get to play Elisabeth rarely look like her because they usually just cast generally attractive women with brown hair because yknow, she was supposed to be incredibly beautiful but the beauty standards have changed a lot since then and are shifting, but still.

Anyway, that's it. I didnt want to watch any documentaries as part of this little project, I wanted to focus on the media thats purely fictional, for lack of a better term, but this was a very good one and Im glad I ended up seeing it

[lunatic-fandom-space]

Das Schicksal derer von Habsburg (1928) [The Fate of those of Habsburg]

This one was very interesting but I kind of struggle to really say anything about it. I can tell you that I had a better time with it than with Elisabeth von Österreich (1931) though.

This was a silent film about the slow death of the austrian imperial family and monarchy, starting with Rudolf's engagement and subsequent suicide all the way through to Emperor Karl's forced departure from Vienna after WWI. Honestly, it kind of had the same issue as Elisabeth von Österreich where I couldnt get emotionally invested at all, but I think I was less bothered by it because I realized pretty quickly that this film was basically just running through the all important events without really trying for emotional investment, if that makes sense. Like, this movie spends most of its time with Rudolf and arguably fleshes his 'fate' out the most, but then obviously it keeps going after his death, and after that was when I really got this feeling that it was essentially just listing a bunch of historical events involving the Habsburgs + the way they died with accompanying visuals, but that feeling was already there during Rudolf's section of the film, it just got more blatant as it went on.

I guess Im maybe a little disappointed because the title of the film made me think it was going to be more about how this family or the whole system of monarchy was doomed from the start, maybe looking at the whole thing with a sense of tragic inevitability kinda like Elisabeth: das Musical sorry I keep bringing it up, but it wasnt that. And that's not the film's fault, I just assumed stuff based on nothing but the title and again, it became clear to me what it was actually doing very quickly, so it wasnt a big deal.

I dont have much to say in the way of pacing and editing which means its pretty alright, but I will say that there was something kind of mesmerizing about it. A lot of it might just be the fact that this was only my second silent movie so my brain still registers it as 'very interesting' by default, but I know a big part of it was definitely the damaged film. When this movie was restored there were bits that had no completely undamaged film available so they had to use film that was already decaying, and now there's parts of the movie that are framed by this white rot on either side, and I just think it looks beautiful. I seriously wonder why decaying film effects arent as common in art as glitch effects or fuzzy vcr effects when theyre so evocative. Also, if Im already talking about technical stuff, the version that I watched was completely silent and didnt have any kind of score, and I thought silent films usually had scores that would then be the audio playing over them whenever they got restored. Is that actually the case and is this film meant to have a score, or am I getting my silent film facts wrong here? I mean, the fact that there wasnt a score didnt bother me too much, it was pretty unusual watching a movie without any kind of sound, but thats about it.

Anyway, I realize that saying "what I like about this movie is that time passed and it was partially destroyed but that partial destruction looks really cool" sounds like a real backhanded compliment, so now Im gonna talk about the other two things that stuck out to me in a positive way. Oh man, that also sounds like a backhanded compliment doesnt it. Listen, these arent the only things that I liked in film I otherwise find bad, these are just the only things I liked in a film that I otherwise dont feel very strongly about. Those things being—

Erna Morena as Elisabeth. I really liked her performance. Unfortunately I cant really articulate why, I think she had a weariness about her that enjoyed and I liked the way she carried herself.

That scene where Rudolf kisses Franz Joseph's hand. The context is, Franz Joseph is telling Rudolf that Mary is gonna leave Vienna so that she cant interfere with him and Stephanie, and that he is to be locked in his room or in the palace until she's gone, but Rudolf begs him to atleast let him see her one last time time so he's like "Fine, but you have to promise me that it really will be the last time you two see each other" and holds out his hand. Rudolf shakes it after a long moment moment of hesitation and then he kisses his hand before laying his cheek against it, and the Franz Joseph puts his hand on the back of his hand in a kindof embrace. oughhhhhhhhh. Its definitely because Ive had a real fascination with masculinity and specifically father-son relationships lately, but that scene is gonna live rent free in my head for a while

So yeah. In conclusion: it was an interesting watch but mostly by virtue of being a very old silent film. It ocurred to me after briefly skimming the wikipedia page that I would have probably found the actual film more interesting (or atleast had more interesting things to say about it) if it didnt deliberately avoid having any kind of political lean, but that doesnt change my opinion of the film so whatever

And now here's three small things that I noticed that I couldnt mention elsewhere before you go:

The makeup and costuming was so 1920s. I have previously said that I am not a history person, and Im not, but I do know some basic stuff about historical fashion and it was honestly really distracting. That was kinda the case with the costuming in Elisabeth von Österreich (1931) as well (although there it was mostly the hair and makeup) but this was a whole other level

There's this scene where Rudolf and Mary first meet and theres this instant chemistry and they start dancing together and then Rudolf just GRIPS her neck and pulls her into a kiss, it was so forceful. I dont think it was supposed to read as aggressive, I'm pretty sure it was just meant to be passionate but idk, it was weird. They dont have any other weird interactions here, for the rest of the film its just pretty standard, old-timey man-woman interactions. And then obviously the suicide, which felt only slightly less sudden than it did in Elisabeth von Österreich

I dont remember at what point in the film this was, I wanna say about a third of the way through, but I was thinking a little about Stephanie and how she was portayed here vs how she was portrayed in Rudolf: Affaire Mayerling, the only other piece of media I have seen so far where she gets focused on quite a bit. I noted that she was a lot more sympathetic whereas the musical portrayed her as a lot more antagonistic, and just as I finished that thought, Stephanie arrives in Mayerling after she heard that Rudolf went there with a certain baroness instead of coming to her, sees Mary sitting outside with Rudolf and some friends of theirs, walks up to her and hits her with either her fan or maybe some kind of stick, I dont remember. so that was kinda funny