From Mayerling to Sarajevo

A historical film set in Austria-Hungary. The year is 1889. Something happens at Mayerling; the crown prince is found dead. The succession opens. The man who will take it is Franz Ferdinand. The emperor's nephew. He is hard, rule-bound, and not liked at court. He meets a woman. Sophie Chotek is a Czech nobleman's daughter. But not noble enough. By the rules of the court this marriage is not possible. Franz Ferdinand insists. From there the film is a story about permission. He works at it for years. The emperor finally agrees. On one condition. The marriage will be morganatic: Sophie will not be empress, their children cannot inherit, and at ceremonies she will stand apart. They accept. From there the film takes place at court. Sophie is humiliated constantly. She enters by a different door, sits apart, and is at the end of the table at state dinners. Franz Ferdinand wants to change it. At the same time he has a political line. He is thinking of remaking the empire. He argues for equal standing for the Slav peoples. That idea makes enemies inside the court and outside it. What the narrative is interested in is not politics but loneliness: its idea is that the couple have no place at court and that their only support is each other. There is a journey at the end. A state visit to Bosnia. For the first time Sophie sits beside her husband in the car, as an equal. The date is 28 June 1914. The narrative ends there. Max Ophüls made this in France. The production was interrupted at the start of the war. Mobilisation was declared, the crew scattered, and the film was completed with difficulty. Ophüls soon had to leave France. Edwige Feuillère, John Lodge and Aimé Clariond are in the cast. Who it is for: anyone who likes European history and period melodrama. Who it is not for: anyone expecting political depth; the narrative reduces the matter to a love story and passes over the background.