Today, we have two films that may be figuring heavily in the film awards season that’s on the horizon. The Fabelmans comes courtesy of Steven Speilberg, while Corsage may be vying for Best International Feature Film.

The Fabelmans (USA - Amazon Prime on demand) - Directed and co-written by the man himself, this is Steven Spielberg’s most personal film. While it is a factionalized account, Spielberg has admitted that it’s semi-autobiographical, and that what changes were made had more to do with dramatic flow and creating narrative tension, but that the facts are, on the whole, true to life. So it’s no surprise to find that it has all to do with a young boy whose dream is to be a filmmaker and storyteller. In the film's opening sequence, the boy is being brought to his very first movie experience back in the 1950’s. He’s accompanied by his parents, as portrayed by Michelle Williams and Paul Dano. He’s of course fascinated by the experience, most especially by the train crash - this is the film The Greatest Show on Earth.

Meeting the parents puts us right away in the middle of one of the big themes of the film. The boy’s mother was a potential concert pianist who jettisoned her musical career to be wife and mother; while the father works on science and technology, seeking rational explanations for everything. Right away, it’s the tension between Art and Science, between being creative/artistic versus rational/practical. For the father, the son’s obsession with home filmmaking is just a hobby, but for the son, it’s his calling and future career. Of course, the irony that this is Spielberg recounting his boyhood and adolescence isn’t lost on us. Could have used some editing, but Spielberg smartly doesn’t stuff all that happened in his boyhood here, using the fictitious character as a way to bring home the bigger messages.

Corsage (Austria - video on demand) - Empress Elizabeth of Hungary and Austria ruled in the 1870’s, and it’s interesting that our female director decides to use her as an icon of how, even as royalty, women were treated like birds in a gilded cage, and seen as nothing more than appendages to the King. The corsage in the title refers to the corset made of whalebone that the Empress is forced to wear to show off an 18-inch waist that she in fact, does not possess. As such, it also becomes a metaphor for the restricted, suffocating life she is forced to lead. Vicky Krieps turns in an astonishing performance that earned her the Best Actress award at Cannes earlier in the year, and it’s a well-deserved accolade. The film is also Austria’s official entry for the Academy Awards’ Best International Feature Film. 

Mainly episodic in narrative, the droll, languid pace of the exposition may try some members of the audience, but it’s par for the course as a reflection of the kind of life the Queen was constrained to lead. Her possible dalliances with a cousin and her riding instructor are remarked upon, and elicits a reaction from her son, the Prince. In fact, it’s the constant admonishing by the King and Prince that prey as the reasons her life was so unsatisfactory, in spite of her royal status. Her fits of fainting, her more irrepressible character that some considered flirtatious, are both possible defense mechanisms against her unhappiness and being so constrained. It’s a deep psychological drama, reminding us of such films as Marie Antoinette and Spencer.