Just finished watching Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette, an anachronistic look at the queen who was too young to die but, from what I saw in the movie, lived long enough to get married, indulge herself in all possible ways for the times she lived in, birth three children, lose one, have an illicit affair with a soldier, play the lead role in a performance, and some more. The movie follows Marie Antoinette from the time of her marriage to Louis XVI at the age of 15 right up to the Revolution.
Marie Antoinette in bed. Awaiting cake.
Marie Antoinette is married off to Louis at the beginning of the movie as part of a diplomatic effort to cement ties between Austria and France, a bond that would be rendered concrete and well-nigh unbreakable once a heir with half-Austrian and half-French blood was born from the union. For the most part, the movie shows the life of the nobility in France as seen through the eyes of the Austrian-born Marie, who is new to the rigid rank-driven protocol of the French court.
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From the start, Marie Antoinette is shown as an outsider in the court, a free-spirited innocent who can’t get her head around the mazelike intricacies of the protocol expected of her. Impulsive, a spendthrift, and easily distracted, she can’t get used to Versailles. A lot of the early parts of the movie deal with her attempts at fitting into the aristocracy at Versailles, the conjugal shyness of her newly-won husband, then Dauphin, who finds her feet cold and prefers hunting to a conversation with his wife, and some glimpses into the protocol in the French court. In fact, the marriage between Louis and Marie Antoinette remains unconsummated till after they have ascended to the throne and her brother, the Holy Roman Emperor, has a long-needed chat with Louis explaining the mechanics of love in terms of keymaking, a favourite hobby of the King.
The only politics for a large part of the movie is over the absence of a heir to the throne of France, a matter of grave concern to her mother, Maria Theresa who never fails to bring it up in any communication with her daughter. The erstwhile King Louis XV, father to Louis XVI, shows some mild concern over the continued virginity of his son and even has a medical examination conducted to determine if his son is whole and capable. But most of the focus on Louis XV was on his relationship with Madame du Barry.
The King is the guy with the funny wig
Madame du Barry (Asia Argento) was probably intended to give an early indicator of the rift between the nobility and the commonfolk of France. She is shown to be bold, froward to the extreme, loud and uncouth, all of which pleases the King and no one else among the aristocracy. She is the butt of their collective snobbery. I guess there can be parallels drawn with the way the newly-rich are treated by the old-moneyed-folk of our own time. She vanishes without a trace after the death of Louis XV and the ascent of Louis XVI to the throne.
It is after the crowning of Louis XVI that the only political decisions in the whole movie are shown. Louis is asked to make a decision on aiding the Americans in their war for freedom. While Louis is against the war on principle believing strongly that no people have the right to rebel against their sovereign king, he agrees nonetheless to support the rebels just to give a black eye to the British. When he enquires about funding the war, his advisors suggest a slight raise in taxes. Later in the movie, the only reference made to the growing costs of the war is a vague reference to internal instability due to the fast decreasing food reserves. Louis opts to continue supporting the American war for independance, a decision which, in the movie, leads to the Revolution. I guess the irony of the French opting for a war to liberate a foreign country (the USA, of all places!) ignoring the burden it places on their own people which leads to the eventual fall of their government (an aristocracy, which is probably extreme right-wing for some people), was too rich to be ignored. Even though a lot of the other historical bits about Marie Antoinette and French society of that time are hardly mentioned at all. Also, Louis has very little role to play in the whole movie.
The King is the guy with the funny cap
He is shown as a shy little nerd who’d rather spend a night reading about wooden Egyptian keys than paying some attention to his newly-won wife.
The movie shouldn’t be thought of as a piece of history or even a biography. It is at most a piece on spoilt rich youth and their casual disregard for the red death outside their wall, secure in the knowledge that everything will work out for them in the end. This is also reflected in the anachronistic post-punk OST employed throughout the movie though I found it jarring and annoying in some places. Though, things don’t really work out all that well at the end. For anyone.
Overall judgement:
+ Costumes (quaint scenes showing the aristo’s pick shoes or gowns or getting their absurdly towering hair done)
+ Irony of French war for liberating a foreign country
+ Colour
+ Kirsten Dunst, I liked her overall.
- No contemporary history of that time. At all. Ignores large chunks of Antoinette’s life.
- Vapid story that had its moments but no larger narrative.
- The robot who played Count Fersen
- Life and times of super-rich brats. Gets boring after a while.
[...] French don’t like Austrians much. But then I knew that from watching Marie Antoinette. [...]