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March 15, 2007
1086: Je m'excuse.
Yeah, I take that back.
This is a terrible, terrible movie.
In fact, it's not actually a movie.
It's just a random selection of text from Antoina Fraser's book spoken by people in really gorgeous costumes in a variety of really gorgeous locations, and assembled in a linear but ineffective storyline. And by "storyline," I mean, "sequence of events baring really no relationship to one another other than having occurred in a specific chronological order." I can't tell you what a huge mistake this is all around; if this film were based on Fraser's book, how did it manage to crush such an obvious, already constructed storyline? The story is RIGHT THERE! The characters are RIGHT THERE! And yet, on film, there's absolutely NOTHING THERE!
As a result of Fraser's book, I've got a bit of a soft spot for both Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI. The same social/economic/political system that (coupled with poor harvest conditions and a number of other significant factors) threatens the lives of France's disenfranchised lower class also makes prisoners (at first figuratively, and then quite literally) of the royal family. Marie Antoinette, in particular, becomes the scapegoat for an entire nation's mismanagement -- a situation which spans generations. She's targeted because she's politically unable to defend herself, being a foreigner and having so little influence at court due to a series of personal and political missteps.
She's only even in France because she's a pawn in a tenuous Franco-Austrian alliance, and she's sent off with only a meager arsenal of political weapons; she arrives totally unprepared for the task ahead of her -- to bridge a gap between two historically aggressive nations, and in the face of continued military and political aggression on both sides (although, to be fair, it's arguably more the Austrians' actions which risk the strength of the alliance). A teenage girl who can barely read is sent in to do a job only a skilled and seasoned diplomat should be trusted to do. To compound her fear and frustration, she's got an overbearing mother constantly berating her from afar (later replaced by an older brother who takes on a similar but much more tender role) to produce an heir and secure some tiny amount of influence over the French court -- no easy task when she can't seem to coax a sheepish husband into sleeping with her, and the entire court has hated her since before she even arrived.
Marie Antoinette's scary situation -- she's essentially the pin in a political grenade that might destroy massive portions of Europe -- should automatically make for an excellent movie. She's a pretty girl in a frightening situation; she lives in a world of incredible beauty and fantastic, dream-like situations which are virtually beyond anything known in the modern world,* and operating in complete contrast but parallel to a world of filth and despair; she's surrounded by colorful characters with their own intrigues and storylines; and she's got a deeply complicated personal life to manage behind closed doors. It's not that her husband doesn't love or want her -- he's, in fact, one of her only supporters -- it's that in an arranged marriage with someone so naturally graceful, he (being severely awkward on a social and physical level) doesn't quite trust that she could love him.
Ultimately, they create a tender partnership and they love their children in a truly earnest, touching way. They don't necessarily want to live in a world where they can't dress themselves and are forced to participate in long, elaborate social events -- they're just obligated to do so. They'd apparently rather raise a family and quietly indulge in their interests.
These interests, at least where she's concerned, make for a lot of cinematic opportunities. She shops a lot. She likes to gamble. She builds a little pleasure place where she and her friends can relax in privacy. The film fails to represent any of these things in their true light, or in any way that does service to the plot. Marie Antoinette parties (and yet, in reality, she doesn't drink) just because, and it doesn't make her a sympathetic character. It might have been better if she'd hosted all-night gambling parties to show how desperate she was to win friends in the court and to distract herself from the stress of her obligations. She shops because she's young and excited, but also because she's filling a personal void while also doing her duty as Queen of the western world's fashion capital. It's not entirely the fault of Kirsten Dunst (who looks the part but simply has no range of emotion in her voice or acting) that Marie Antoinette is totally unsympathetic -- her character is barely a character at all. She's just a girl on screen that things seem to happen to every now and then.
Tragically, she's as close as we get to having any sort of character. Everyone else on screen is barely anything at all; they speak but we have really no idea who they are or what they're about. If you haven't read the book, it almost looks like it's the inexplicable criticism of courtiers that eventually takes Marie Antoinette down. And, on that note, why are we never shown the outside world? To show how insulated Versailles was? How can we know how isolated court life was if we have absolutely no contrast -- at least until people come with torches to the front door? But up until that point, Marie Antoinette is surrounded by non-characters, totally destroying whatever semblance of a plot might have existed. We have no concern for them because they're not even remotely human. What a waste too, because they're played by talented people. I may be alone in this, but I love Jason Schwartzman a little bit ("I like your nurse's uniform, guy." "These are O.R. scrubs." "O, R they?"); perhaps he reminds me of people I grew up with, I don't know, but I like the guy and he's completely wasted here.
Louis XVI comes across as an unlikable nerd when in reality, he may have been awkward and lame at times, but doesn't seem without endearing qualities. We should have felt embarrassed and nervous for him, just as we should have felt concerned and protective of her. Ultimately, when the mobs come for them, we only feel relieved because it means the movie might be ending soon.
Frankly, I don't mind the decision to end the film where it does but it hasn't done anything up until that point to deserve that type of ending. In fact, the decision to end (frankly, I don't consider this a spoiler because we really all ought to know that they're executed) with their evacuation from Versailles at the hands of the mob is the first semi-sophisticated decision Sofia Coppola has made in this film. The script is so pathetic, repetitive, obvious and without sentiment that to end on a vaguely subtle note (an image of her ransacked bedroom rather than, you know, the severed heads of her body guards being toted around) doesn't work. As Pete points out, it feels like they simply ran out of film. If only they could have run out sooner!
* If anything good came out of this film it's that it provided a lot of beautiful images for talented people like Sarah to work with and create even more beautiful things.
Posted by ashley at March 15, 2007 10:28 AM
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