Sofia Coppola's women really have a thousand lonely gestures: sitting cross-legged in a bathtub and kissing their knees, standing alone under a huge door arch, moving slowly across a large square... almost reminiscent of Charlotte, sitting cross-legged and overwhelmed in the upper floors of a downtown hotel in Tokyo.
Sofia's films are always full of understanding and empathy for women, and it can be seen at a glance that they are made by female directors. But she seems to be too lenient with Antoinette, blaming her extravagance entirely on her unhappy marriage life, never mentioning her doting on ladies, interfering in government affairs, and forcing her husband to pay her debts are just a few vague shots. The preference and justification are too obvious, and it is difficult to have more aftertaste and evaluation besides sympathy for women. I am afraid that is the reason why the film is difficult to become a classic.
But why? The director has no intentional ambitions, and only concentrates on expressing himself. The viewers are relaxed and comfortable, and they don’t have to realize some truths in life in two hours. Female audiences can sigh deeply: She knows a woman's heart.
The soundtrack is really good! Get rid of the fixed combination of "court drama + classical music", "Rococo picture + rock soundtrack" is so harmonious. When Antoinette escaped from the boring court party and walked lightly under the porch, thinking of her distant love, the soundtrack immediately switched from clavichord to rock, and the light, comfortable and free sense of relief was vividly displayed. It can be seen that the soundtrack is also a magical expression.
Dramatic. The history of Louis XVI and Queen Mary has always been debated, and the most famous executioner story is widely questioned (but I think it's well made). Coppola's story clearly adopts Zweig's "Queen of the Dead". The narrative point of view of the two is the same, and even their attitude towards Antoinette is the same. She believes that Marie's mistake was not seeing the price behind the gift of fate. After all, Just a lively and happy girl. There are many escape points in the plot, such as how Louis' sexual disorder was solved (circumcision), how the French public's attitude towards Antoinette changed ("Pearl Necklace Incident"), the couple's later escape, imprisonment, The final execution was not mentioned (perhaps to maintain the aesthetics of the movie and the character setting). Viewers unfamiliar with the event may seem disconnected.
theme. I quite agree with Zweig and Sophia: Antoinette is just a young girl put on the throne, and her mistakes are a "banal evil". Mediocre evil was originally used to describe Eichmann, the "executioner" of the Jewish Holocaust. Before the trial in Jerusalem, people speculated about how perverted and paranoid anti-Semitism this murderer had to end the Five Dynasties without blinking an eye. For the lives of millions of Jews, when it was his turn to plead, there was only one sentence, "I'm just carrying out orders." As for Antoinette, before getting to know her in depth, people wondered how extravagant the queen who "hollowed out France" was, but when she really tried her, she found that she was just lonely?
Eichmann followed orders, Antoinette followed the laziness of human nature. Indeed, it is not incomprehensible that she has been wronged because of her husband's sexual dysfunction, and it is not incomprehensible that she uses frantic purchases of jewelry to solve it. This is in line with human nature. But if it was her mother, Queen Teresa, she would never indulge herself to such a degree that she would restrain herself with wisdom, patience, morality, and responsibility.
She's not really great, but she's not evil either, she's just mediocre. The political situation in France at that time could not tolerate such a mediocre queen. That's all.
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