Last night I went to bed playing the trailer for Sofia Coppola's new film over and over in my head. When I slept, I dreamt of a rock opera infused with punk energy and Dangerous Liaison-esque debauchery. Today the film had its first public screening in France and I finally got to see Kirsten Dunst as Marie Antoinette, celebrating her eighteenth birthday to New Order's Age of Consent. Alas, the film did not live up to my lofty expectations.
Based on Andrea Fraser's hefty biography of the French queen, Sofia Coppola's film is both historically accurate and pure fantasy. I didn't mind the French and Austrian aristocracy speaking English, the simplification of political events or the many anachronisms (including a pair of pink Converse sneakers). Coppola's film is neither a BBC history lesson, nor a political drama, but rather a stylised portrait of a teenager whose rites of passage into adulthood are magnified by extraordinary circumstances.
Kirsten Dunst is the 14 year-old dauphine catapulted into the surreal world of Versailles: a gilded prison which would become her home until the French revolution took her life some 15 years later. Marie Antoinette is forced to live out her adolescence under constant scrutiny, surrounded by omnipresent servants who rob her of privacy. Her destiny is written by others, from the obligation to give birth to a male heir, to becoming Queen at age 19. Unable to achieve real freedom, she abuses the liberties afforded by her position: pink shoes and macaroons, gambling the night away and cavorting with sexy Swedish soldiers in the bushes.
Shot in the Chateau de Versailles in gorgeous pastel tones, the beautiful cast is dressed in sumptuous costumes, making for pleasant if slightly passive viewing. Kirsten Dunst is impeccable as the self-absorbed teenage heroin, kept in total ignorance of her role in the off-screen drama which engulfs her adopted nation. Yet there is not enough substance here to sustain the viewers' interest, or our compassion for this rich, spoilt girl.
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Article comments
1 - Sister Ray
Why do they have to put modern stuff like pink Converses into films set in the past? To me, part of the fun of an historical film is seeing how people dressed in the past, especially glamorous queens.
2 - barf
Dude , you shouldn't be writing 'reviews' of something you've read about second hand, and something that is based on a subject that youre woefully ignorant of.
1. M-A was not the 'dauphine' [Personal attack deleted]
2. The chick that wrote the book that SC used as a basis, is not "Andrea Fraser". [Personal attack deleted]
3. Existential ennui is redundant, [Personal attack deleted]
4. M-A was 16 when she came to France. [Personal attack deleted]
[Personal attack deleted]
3 - Clarice
I wholly support Ms. Coppola's theme re: young women transitioning from adolescence to young adult hood.
I don't care if it is latently autobiographical or not.
A mere few centuries ago women were chatel, not film producers.
And coming of age has been a major theme in literature for young men.
As far as the French court, delusion, excess, disengagement and governing in isolation sealed their fate.
So possibly Coppola got it right.
4 - chinamei
I left M.A. with a head ache -- two hours of nearly pure photo essay imagery -- the level of which often resonated with the mis en scene aesthetics of sophmoric studio art.
In a word. D'accord.
5 - d dog
yea this movie is lame
6 - everyone
I want my time back. I found myself asking my wife 'what was THAT look'? 'So does she LOVE him or hate him?' or 'Why did that person do that?'.
Is this a story about sex, is this a story about food, is this a story at all?
My wife said that if not for my questions, she would have been asleep half way through.
7 - Ilona
I think that Marie Antoinette is an endlessly facinating person. I love all the stories of kings and queens of that time and see that it is not alll glitz and glamour. THe book that the film was ever so loosly based on was very good in my opinion- much better than the film so i cannot see why the writter wouild every deem that the movie was magical.
It wasnt. In my opinion it was directed by a person who knew much about beauty (the costumes were beautiful although not historically corect as they wouldn't have been wearing those shades but anyhow)and tried to be deep and meaning ful but all you came up with was a shallow hollow charater.
For one thing you had to put on the subtitles to acutully hear the words over the blaring soundtrack filled with songs that amde me cringe and i think ruined the beauty of versailles and the intricatly sewen costumes.
I really didnt like the film at all and i am only 13 and can still see though the meaninglless attemet to be arty...
8 - b0b
its a crap movie
9 - Remy Davies
It's a good movie.
10 - Marie
The Converse shoes are blue, not pink
11 - Paige~
Everyone get over it
This movie was brilliant
id like someone to point out how Sofia Coppola attempted to make this movie arty? This movie was visually stunning, an endulgence of colour, sugar, sex and new order. Whats the problem ? Im in love.
12 - Helen
Its hard to defend the actions of Marie Antoinette, a queen who lived a life of unimaginable extravagances while her people starved. I'm still not sure WHY Coppola made this film or what her point was, and I certainly felt very little compassion for this heartless, vapid queen by the end of the film. However, Coppola is nothing if not original, and her vision explored new ways of making historical drama, elements of which worked well in my opinion and some of which didn't. The film is a sensual delight, a storm of pleasures: food, colour, beauty, nature. The general absence of narrative makes the experience of watching it akin to slowly and mindlessly devouring one of those exquisite, pink macaroons. This barrage of beauty is interrupted by the modern, rock soundtrack, which seems to jar, as do the sunglasses and converse sneakers. Rather than making the Queen more accessible, the result of these modern intrusions was to shake me out of my suspended belief and force me to become aware that I was not watching the former Queen of France, but an American actor pretending whilst other Americans filmed her and tried to be witty.
13 - Mr Lover
Old Style converse hehe with a guy on a tractor :)
14 - Love Labels
Sister Ray I think the whole point of this, is to envision the mixture of modern and old, could you imagine how someone would stand out wearing converse shoes back in the olden times . . . . Amazing
15 - Jerry
Pure trash. Infantile tripe.