This movie about Marie Antoniette "glory years" is loosely based on Antonia Fraser's biography and doesn't dwell on the final, miserable period of the queen's life.
The poster promoting the film gives hits of its links with punk and post-punk atmospheres (that pink banner suggesting the Sex pistols's God Save Queen single cover, etc....) but most of the audience seem to have missed the connection.
The plot shows how the young queen was a pawn in a political marriage, thrown into a court that was a web of deception and corruption and left to cope with her limited resources. It did not help her that her husband Louis future XVI was not much interested in sex and left her sleeping in a cold bed for seven years.
Left to her own device and frustration, Marie "overcompensated" with the company of her friends, gambling and shopping. Not crimes "per se", but advertised as such to the peasants of France. Even her choice of spending time in the bucolic peace of the splendid Trianon was criticised both by the aristocrats, because she was neglecting the etiquette and by the peasants, as a sign of mocking extravagance. Whatever, Marie did, was wrong and it was easy as always to point out "lasciviousness" as her main wickedness. Like most women, sex was a cause for degrading libels, even if her one and only alleged lover was Count Fersen. When Marie gained some maturity thanks to maternity, it was already too late to save her reputation.
The settings, costumes and for me even the choice of music underline the decadent opulence of the last days of the Ancien Régime, making for a magnificent experience. A lushness for the senses, with a melancholic ending, sparing the audience the worst part.
The poster promoting the film gives hits of its links with punk and post-punk atmospheres (that pink banner suggesting the Sex pistols's God Save Queen single cover, etc....) but most of the audience seem to have missed the connection.
The plot shows how the young queen was a pawn in a political marriage, thrown into a court that was a web of deception and corruption and left to cope with her limited resources. It did not help her that her husband Louis future XVI was not much interested in sex and left her sleeping in a cold bed for seven years.
Left to her own device and frustration, Marie "overcompensated" with the company of her friends, gambling and shopping. Not crimes "per se", but advertised as such to the peasants of France. Even her choice of spending time in the bucolic peace of the splendid Trianon was criticised both by the aristocrats, because she was neglecting the etiquette and by the peasants, as a sign of mocking extravagance. Whatever, Marie did, was wrong and it was easy as always to point out "lasciviousness" as her main wickedness. Like most women, sex was a cause for degrading libels, even if her one and only alleged lover was Count Fersen. When Marie gained some maturity thanks to maternity, it was already too late to save her reputation.
The settings, costumes and for me even the choice of music underline the decadent opulence of the last days of the Ancien Régime, making for a magnificent experience. A lushness for the senses, with a melancholic ending, sparing the audience the worst part.
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