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Bavaria, 1864: Ludwig (Helmut Berger) is a mere 18 years old when he's crowned King of Bavaria ... and frankly, he couldn't be less interested in the affairs of state as all his attentions is directed towards building the perfect opera house for Richard Wagner (Trevor Howard), whose music he not only adores but who has also become a father figure to him.

Eventually though, Ludwig meets his cousin Sissi (Romy Schneider, reprising her role from the Austrian Sissi films from the 1950s), who had shared a similar fate some 10 years earlier, being married to the Emperor of Austria at age 16. The two of them bet along from the start, and share many interests, and Ludwig starts to have tender feelings for her.

But Ludwig's world is soon shattered when Wagner is unmasked as a profiteer and chased out of Munich, Sissi was obviously using their relationship only to warm Ludwig up to her sister Sophie (Sonia Petrovna), whom she wants him to marry, and even his little brother Otto (John Moulder-Brown) turns away from him after returning shell-shocked from a war the Bavarian Kingdom has entered that Ludwig now refuses to recognize.

Trying to pick up the pieces again, Ludwig announces he'll marry Sophie, but that does little to get him back together with Sissi, and the more time he spends with Sophie the less he feels for her - and it isn't before long that he notices he's actually more drawn to men than women.

Eventually, Ludwig resolves his engagement to Sophie and starts working on madder and madder and increasingly more decadent schemes, like building over-the-top castles nobody's ever going to live in, while chasing after actors who have taken his fancy, and forcing them to remain in character throughout. This of course drains the state's finances, to a point where he's seen as a weak leader on the outside who has to give in to demands of the German Empire - but the Bavarian parliament supports him in all his fancies to keep him away from actually gouverning ... until they decide to drop him, and to have him declared insane and thus abdicate the throne. But Ludwig isn't one to go down that easily ...

Ludwig is pretty much the historical drama that gets it right, as the film doesn't drown its actually story in much pomp, lavish sets and props, setpieces that deliver little but pretty pictures, and a general approach bound to paint history in a nostalgic light. Now that isn't to say that Ludwig does not have its great sets and props, but they serve the purpose to carry the story, and its setpieces are of a much more intimate nature, as this isn't a tale of greatness or cold biography but a psychogram of the high rise and deep fall of its titular hero, that takes its time (four hours in the original version) to detail its story, but a great subtle yet compelling directorial effort and a top notch cast delivering their A-game make it really worth your while.

Basically, a masterpiece!

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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