The parallels drawn between the empress Elisabeth’s and Ruth Beckermann’s journeys tell of the luxury of strolling and a female eye in search of freedom. In feverish parallels, the filmmaker follows the traces of the “Sissi” myth in Cairo and discovers an image transcending the oasis of wellbeing that is the romanticizing cult film. The results are masterfully interwoven in loose layers between home and freedom, loneliness and Orientalism. Doubts about her own image production are lurking everywhere. A longing to break out of preordained paths can be felt in every second. To see things the way a free woman could have seen them.

Patrick Holzapfel