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Review #028: Marie Antoinette
FORMAT: Movie
TITLE: Marie Antoinette
ACTORS: Kirsten Dunst, Rose Byrne, no one else particularly famous.
01. Alright, so supposedly this is supposed to be some modern retelling (or an artistic interpretation) of Marie Antoinette's story. But... what? I spent at least the first five minutes staring at the screen in bewilderment. It started out with Kirsten Dunst's hairstyle. There's no way anyone would have let their hair down like that. American accents abounded, making the whole thing even stranger, and wtf was up with everyone meeting each other in the woods?
02. She was allowed to keep her dog, thank you very much.
03. Ugh, some of those rituals must have been completely humiliating. She had to get dressed in front of all the women in her attendance, and it was a month before she was allowed to bathe alone. Also, when she was transported into France, they forced her to take off all her Austrian clothes in front of everyone (obviously, she changed right into a French gown, but still). And on top of that, a public birth? *shudders*
04. If you don't take things in by hearing (i.e. you're a visual person), it would be a good idea to watch this movie with subtitles. You could often hear someone gossiping offscreen, or they would show a scene where everyone was talking about each other in low voices and you couldn't understand half of what they were saying.
05. On a visual note, this film was amazing. The gowns were the least of it. There were some gorgeous shots of the Austrian palace and Versailles, and the rooms themselves were incredible. They also showed lots of bright-colored food, which made me really hungry.
06. Marie Antoinette's children were so cute! ♥ They kind of messed up on this one, though, since they showed three when in reality she had four. Also, her first son had died by the time of the march on Versailles, and it was her second son who was alive at the time. Not that anyone really cared, but still.
07. One thing this film did really well was give us the sense of being cut off from the suffering of the French people, so that when they began rioting it was as much a surprise (well, you know what I mean) to us as it would have been for Marie.
08. The ending was ridiculously abrupt. And what, not even a little note afterwards to tell us about the rest of her downfall? Everyone knows that she died, but the movie gave the impression that they were just heading away from Versailles into a place of general safety.
09. Note on the music: it was cool during the opening credits, and during one of the shoe/food/party montages, but other than that it was kind of blah.
10. I couldn't keep anyone straight in this movie. This might have been because I wasn't using subtitles, but I had no idea who any of the people were except for the guy she had an affair with. (He kind of left randomly, and then was forgotten about for the rest of the film.)
11. I was impressed by the accuracy of several quotes they used. I was doing some research on her while writing this review so that I could be sure of what I was talking about, and a lot of the things she said were lifted directly from eyewitness accounts. "There are a lot of people at Versailles tonight, aren't there" was priceless.
12. All in all, this movie basically struck me as eye candy. This "modern retelling" didn't actually tell us anything that we didn't already know, and there's only so much partying and wandering in the gardens one can take before they start wondering when the Revolution's going to happen. It didn't really have any substance, other than "Oh, there's a revolt going on... but look, some more pretty dresses!" Blah blah blah artistic vision and all, I know. Personally, I liked the gossip more.
TITLE: Marie Antoinette
ACTORS: Kirsten Dunst, Rose Byrne, no one else particularly famous.
01. Alright, so supposedly this is supposed to be some modern retelling (or an artistic interpretation) of Marie Antoinette's story. But... what? I spent at least the first five minutes staring at the screen in bewilderment. It started out with Kirsten Dunst's hairstyle. There's no way anyone would have let their hair down like that. American accents abounded, making the whole thing even stranger, and wtf was up with everyone meeting each other in the woods?
02. She was allowed to keep her dog, thank you very much.
03. Ugh, some of those rituals must have been completely humiliating. She had to get dressed in front of all the women in her attendance, and it was a month before she was allowed to bathe alone. Also, when she was transported into France, they forced her to take off all her Austrian clothes in front of everyone (obviously, she changed right into a French gown, but still). And on top of that, a public birth? *shudders*
04. If you don't take things in by hearing (i.e. you're a visual person), it would be a good idea to watch this movie with subtitles. You could often hear someone gossiping offscreen, or they would show a scene where everyone was talking about each other in low voices and you couldn't understand half of what they were saying.
05. On a visual note, this film was amazing. The gowns were the least of it. There were some gorgeous shots of the Austrian palace and Versailles, and the rooms themselves were incredible. They also showed lots of bright-colored food, which made me really hungry.
06. Marie Antoinette's children were so cute! ♥ They kind of messed up on this one, though, since they showed three when in reality she had four. Also, her first son had died by the time of the march on Versailles, and it was her second son who was alive at the time. Not that anyone really cared, but still.
07. One thing this film did really well was give us the sense of being cut off from the suffering of the French people, so that when they began rioting it was as much a surprise (well, you know what I mean) to us as it would have been for Marie.
08. The ending was ridiculously abrupt. And what, not even a little note afterwards to tell us about the rest of her downfall? Everyone knows that she died, but the movie gave the impression that they were just heading away from Versailles into a place of general safety.
09. Note on the music: it was cool during the opening credits, and during one of the shoe/food/party montages, but other than that it was kind of blah.
10. I couldn't keep anyone straight in this movie. This might have been because I wasn't using subtitles, but I had no idea who any of the people were except for the guy she had an affair with. (He kind of left randomly, and then was forgotten about for the rest of the film.)
11. I was impressed by the accuracy of several quotes they used. I was doing some research on her while writing this review so that I could be sure of what I was talking about, and a lot of the things she said were lifted directly from eyewitness accounts. "There are a lot of people at Versailles tonight, aren't there" was priceless.
12. All in all, this movie basically struck me as eye candy. This "modern retelling" didn't actually tell us anything that we didn't already know, and there's only so much partying and wandering in the gardens one can take before they start wondering when the Revolution's going to happen. It didn't really have any substance, other than "Oh, there's a revolt going on... but look, some more pretty dresses!" Blah blah blah artistic vision and all, I know. Personally, I liked the gossip more.
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The sets were mostly great because it was the actual Palace of Versailles, not just a cheap knock-off. I found that to be impressive enough. Otherwise, it was pretty, but it was equally boring.
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I have no idea, really, but I guess they did allowed it under the strictest of guidelines. Like how the jewels used in the Princess Diaries were real crown jewels, so they had to have guards on the set at all times.