Morgan Bell
Kynaston
REVIEW: Marie Antoinette
March 12th 2008 15:13
Directed & Written: Sofia Coppola (The Virgin Suicides, Lost In Translation)
Starring: Kirsten Dunst (The Virgin Suicides, Drop Dead Gorgeous, Wimbledon, Spider Man), Jason Schwartzman (Spun, Rushmore), Judy Davis (Life With Judy Garland, The Man Who Sued God)
I like Sofia Coppola's style, it is an unabashed female style of story-telling that is delicate and simple and lovely to watch. There seems to be a pattern emerging with Coppola choosing stories of rich, bored young girls struggling with the roles imposed on them . . . perhaps a reflection of her being such a girl herself . . . a lot is expected of a girl who is the daughter of someone famous or successful or important, and living up to those expectations can be daunting. Coppola interpretation of the Marie Antoinette story depicts Antoinette as vulnerable, young and naïve, as opposed to the notoriously vain and cold monarch that history has caricaturised her as. In Coppolas vision Antoinette is a scapegoat, misquoted by the media and demonised for being a foreigner, the little wasteful Austrian girl sitting on the throne of France as her husband pours funding into the American civil war and the people of France starve and suffer. This film is taken entirely from Antoinette's point of view, and we are asked to see her sympathetically as the victim of her circumstances. We see that her main crime was being disinterested and insular, but being largely unaware of the world outside her palace and privilege was the result of leading a sheltered existence. This film won the Oscar for costumes which is well-deserved as it is a continuous fashion parade of wigs and gowns, in amazingly ornate interior settings, showing the extravagance of the aristocracy in that era (an era where a princess needs a hundred people overseeing her standing in the nude waiting to be dressed but must take baths in her nightgown!). My only real criticism is that the modern soundtrack of bubblegum girl punk and power ballads that would usually effectively litter a movie like Mean Girls, Clueless, Romy & Michelle or Ten Things I Hate About You . . . but here I did not find it enjoyable as it is just loud and distracting. But check out newcomer model/actor Jamie Dornan as the military man-beauty that Antoinette has a sweet and passionate affair with before he is deployed to the war . . . he is stunning and sincere, and im glad such a pretty film contained at least one pretty boy!
Starring: Kirsten Dunst (The Virgin Suicides, Drop Dead Gorgeous, Wimbledon, Spider Man), Jason Schwartzman (Spun, Rushmore), Judy Davis (Life With Judy Garland, The Man Who Sued God)
I like Sofia Coppola's style, it is an unabashed female style of story-telling that is delicate and simple and lovely to watch. There seems to be a pattern emerging with Coppola choosing stories of rich, bored young girls struggling with the roles imposed on them . . . perhaps a reflection of her being such a girl herself . . . a lot is expected of a girl who is the daughter of someone famous or successful or important, and living up to those expectations can be daunting. Coppola interpretation of the Marie Antoinette story depicts Antoinette as vulnerable, young and naïve, as opposed to the notoriously vain and cold monarch that history has caricaturised her as. In Coppolas vision Antoinette is a scapegoat, misquoted by the media and demonised for being a foreigner, the little wasteful Austrian girl sitting on the throne of France as her husband pours funding into the American civil war and the people of France starve and suffer. This film is taken entirely from Antoinette's point of view, and we are asked to see her sympathetically as the victim of her circumstances. We see that her main crime was being disinterested and insular, but being largely unaware of the world outside her palace and privilege was the result of leading a sheltered existence. This film won the Oscar for costumes which is well-deserved as it is a continuous fashion parade of wigs and gowns, in amazingly ornate interior settings, showing the extravagance of the aristocracy in that era (an era where a princess needs a hundred people overseeing her standing in the nude waiting to be dressed but must take baths in her nightgown!). My only real criticism is that the modern soundtrack of bubblegum girl punk and power ballads that would usually effectively litter a movie like Mean Girls, Clueless, Romy & Michelle or Ten Things I Hate About You . . . but here I did not find it enjoyable as it is just loud and distracting. But check out newcomer model/actor Jamie Dornan as the military man-beauty that Antoinette has a sweet and passionate affair with before he is deployed to the war . . . he is stunning and sincere, and im glad such a pretty film contained at least one pretty boy!
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