An almost four hours long tale of how King Ludwig II loses his empire, his loves and his mind. Starting with his coronation, and ending with his final demise, it tells the stories of his great loves; his love for (the music of) Wagner, his love for his (married) niece Elizabeth (which remains ultimately unrequited, and he then he gets engaged to another niece, but they never marry), his love for opera, men... and the moon. He spends the fortunes of Bavaria on building gigantic new (mostly unoccupied) castles, becomes addicted to chloroform and finally is dethroned after indicating he wants to commit suicide.
That would be it in a nutshell, though not all seems entirely correct. Elsewhere it says he was also sexually involved with a certain prince, but that is not implied here. And it was not until 2007 that it was revealed that he was probably killed by hit men. Many scenes are very long, but they are very aptly shot, the acting is very good and the costumes and settings are impeccable. The story is never hard to follow and the dialogues are intriguing, to say the least.
I'm not the one to decide if this is a masterpiece or not, but I have no arguments to claim otherwise, either. But this is indeed a far cry from the Sissi trilogy (as expected) and a very good film. It's too bad that it is in Italian - it should have been in German of course - but alas.
A big 8 out of 10 nonetheless.
That would be it in a nutshell, though not all seems entirely correct. Elsewhere it says he was also sexually involved with a certain prince, but that is not implied here. And it was not until 2007 that it was revealed that he was probably killed by hit men. Many scenes are very long, but they are very aptly shot, the acting is very good and the costumes and settings are impeccable. The story is never hard to follow and the dialogues are intriguing, to say the least.
I'm not the one to decide if this is a masterpiece or not, but I have no arguments to claim otherwise, either. But this is indeed a far cry from the Sissi trilogy (as expected) and a very good film. It's too bad that it is in Italian - it should have been in German of course - but alas.
A big 8 out of 10 nonetheless.