La reine Margot

For the American people that have seen this excellent French movie, I will say just one thing: in many countries around the world we get to see movies from abroad with subtitles. Most of the movies that we see in South American countries come either from North America or Europe and we don't usually complain about the subtitles. Only kids movies are dubbed in Spanish. A great part of the romance or charm about French movies comes from the fact that they are actually spoken in French. Nobody in these films expects the rest of the world to understand as they speak but to make a little effort and appreciate the beauty in each language is something I think is missing in American culture. I've seen nothing but comments on how difficult it was for some members of the American public to understand this film. I only ask myself: in times of globalization, isn't it interesting to learn from people from other parts of the world in their own language, specially a French film based on a French novel by the French Alexandre Dumas, placed in the 16th century, directed by one of France's best directors and acted by some of the most wonderful French actors and actresses of the last decades? Would you want to see this film in English? Sorry, but I think you would be missing a great deal of the depth and emotion of this unique film!!!

This is not flawless filmmaking, but it IS flawless cinema. One won't bother recounting the story, or the plotline, a viewer can gather that from history, OR previous reviews, OR even a casual overview of Dumas novels. One would like to speak to the filmmaking here, and along the way, on the movie.

If one is at all interested in French history, one has already seen this movie a thousand* times, * meaning enough. However, a digital dvd transfer of the movie as it was originally intended to be seen by M. Chéreau, without subtitles, without interference,the VO [version originale] is stunning. The first and foremost difference is the lighting - il te frappe, as the French would say, "it strikes you." Not being a technician, one can't speak to the difference between the film one saw on DVD and the film one saw in American theaters, or on American DVD, or even on VHS, French and/or American. The difference is striking. From the opening scenes, one is suddenly, almost frightfully, drawn into the 16th century, an epoch without the cushions of modern life. The light is everywhere, and it shines in a way that is pitiless and revelatory. This was never, unfortunately, appparent to theater goers here, and, I suspect, to cinema goers in France. If it had been, there would have been Oscars. One is not sure cinema projection equipment can convey what M. Chéreau did with this film. Where there is light, there is "liminality" and where there are shadows, even there there is light, but it is dim (thus not liminal), and the cadaverous flesh of the living players conveys more than anyone could ever say in dialogue - these are "dead" people, living out a drama that is already predestined for them, which is a marvelously conceived conceit of the filmmaker. M. Chéreau is playing with predestination and Fate here, and it is through the art of cinema that he is doing it. Mlle Adjani turns in a bravura performance, and it is only by grace of Jeanne Moreau's 1954 performance that we have any scale of comparison. Moreau's performance is cool, ice and politics, but Adjani's is heat, love and politics, and suited to her generation. Vincent Perez is suitably heroic (watch the rose tones come and go on his flesh as the light changes). The kudos for male performances, however, are shared by Jean-Hugues Anglade, long an underrated French actor, and Daniel Auteuil, too long appreciated for his bravura performances elsewhere and not given enough credit for what he can do with a gesture, with a line, with a look. M. Auteuil is almost always lit with cool hypocrisy, (ambers and greens) as suits his performance, but M. Anglade turns in one of the best roles of his career as the doomed Charles IX, and he never looks less than "on death's door." A naturally sensitive actor, he adds a touch of "soullessness" to his Charles IX that is unforgettable - weak, yes, king, yes, momma's boy, yes, but also, in the end, needy child. It is stunning in its ultimate simplicity as a performance for cinema. Very few performances in film measure up to Virna Lisi's Catherine de Medici(s) [the s is French spelling]. She is "incroyable" (incredible), and something was wrong when she wasn't recognized universally as '94's best supporting actress. Her queen is multi-layered, loving, hating, deeply cynical yet naively superstitious, playing son against son and daughter against political reality, in other words a perfect incarnation of the 16th century in France. Any political woman you can think of could have sat at her feet and learned lessons on "how to do it." Mme Lisi herself might have been a confidante to the real Catherine, she is that good in this role. She was crowned for this performance in Europe, but should have been crowned universally. Watch her as she vacillates between love and hate and politics, and especially watch the lighting - it subtly changes according to her role of the moment. Watch her carefully towards the end, as Fate winds things up, and watch an actress give herself up totally to the role, to the moment, in order to incarnate a character that is absolutely unforgettable.

Apparently, M. Chéreau lets his actors know what he is doing, because they respond in according " shades" of emotion. When the lighting is dim, or the focus is midrange, they "fuzz" a little, giving the viewer a sense of their uncertainty, but if he focuses, they focus, too, and there are frightening moments of soul-baring intimacy when you almost want to look away - it is like watching your intimates make love; too much, too intimate, too deep. Dominique Blanc turns in a nearly flawless performance as the over-the-top lady-in-waiting to Margot - watch her lighting, too, and how she responds. "Conspiratrice", duchesse, cynical woman in love despite herself, she is very, very good. Pascal Greggory as the future Henri III is wonderful, and the rest of the cast stand out. This was obviously a labor of love and intensity, and all gave their best to M. Chéreau.

In the end, one keeps wondering what it is about the film that was so memorable - and the french dvd transfer makes it perfectly clear. The performances, yes; the "mise en scène," yes; the director, certainly. But it is the whole, the light and the shadows, the darkness and the glow, as in those candles in the marvelous square paper lanterns in the late night of the Louvre as the people begin to weave their plots, that make it memorable. Good actors, great performances, and a sure director - flawless cinema.

I don't pretend to know the minutiae of the historical record, but it was Definitely Not Dumas, or I lost it all in the English translations! Like many others I've always been fascinated by this episode in French history, a turbulent and savagely intolerant period and not only in France, but 1572 is yet another year that went down in infamy. This film portrays the complicated machinations performed by Catherine de Medici and her cohorts in furthering her Catholic ambitions for her country and debauched family against the perceived threat of dour Protestantism, and centred around the St. Bartholomew Day Massacre.

It's the rather beautiful Isabelle Adjani's stunning performance as Queen Margot that can leave you as breathless as she often is in the film, without her it would have been a much poorer film. She seemed to live the part, with every emotion imaginable on display. Would French breathlessness, or those huge rustling dresses sound as good dubbed into English?! On the other hand the rest of the cast are superb in their roles too, but especially Daniel Auteuil as Henri de Navarre and Jean Hugues Anglade as Charles IX, making them both extremely believable sympathetic characters when they weren't. The bloodbath and the anarchy of the Massacre and aftermath is vividly presented – we are not spared a single thing in the entire film, all manner of violence and depravity is non-gratuitously displayed. It's impossible to convey a part of what happens in this film – the same as it must have been impossible for the film to convey a fraction of what happened in that era too: it really is a must-see. I've seen it a number of times now since 1994 and I find something new I hadn't spotted before every time. It's a film that can make you realise (if you didn't before) that millions of ordinary folk all around the world could and still can believe in such arrant religious nonsense to the point of committing multiple ghastly murders in the name of empty air.

Apart from all that, it's a beautifully crafted film, the best of its kind there's ever been.

French dynastic history in the late 16th century does not seem a promising subject for a film, but Patrice Chereau, a prominent French stage director, has teased out some personal drama out of the larger historical picture, and provided a vivid and absorbing tale. The story itself is adapted from Alexandre Dumas' novel, which is a pretty highly colored piece to begin with. Chereau theatrically plasters the set with blood and gore, and we are left in no doubt that an atrocity has occurred (the St Bartholomew's day massacre of the Hugenots.) The mendacious Queen Mother, Catherine di Medici, and her weak-minded son, Charles IX, seem to have set it off to deal with the protestant problem without realizing how bad it might get.

In all this horror is the rather cute tale of the relationship between two disparate personalities thrown together in marriage, Catherine's daughter Margo and Henry of Navarre (later Henry IV of France, and one of its better kings). Margo is repulsed at first sight by Henry `the peasant' while Henry rightly regards her as about as loving as a trapped tiger. Yet they reach an accommodation and finish up friends. Both have other lovers (and both respect that) but neither can prevent the lovers from coming to sticky ends.

It's always a bit hard to assess the acting when you are relying on sub-titles (if only the French didn't speak so fast) but Isabella Adjani at the age of 40 pulled off a remarkable job and had me convinced she really was a spoilt, willful little nymphomaniac in her early 20's. She looked as young as she did in the `Story of Adele H' 20 years earlier. Daniel Auteuil was also excellent as the unprepossessing but very intense and quick-thinking Henry. Virna Lisi, a sex symbol in her earlier film career, made a good villainess as Catherine. Most of the other principals seem to have been chosen for their looks by rent-an-ego casting though Jean-Huges Anglade was suitably pathetic as the doomed King Charles.

The rather claustrophobic sets brought home the medieval lack of privacy, even (perhaps especially) in royal palaces – the old Louvre was about as spacious as the ‘loo. The film fades a bit in the second half, but it's still not a bad story, if at times a bit difficult to follow. I have to say I found `Elizabeth' more interesting and a lot less bloody. Anyway, `Margo' is very French, and not to be judged by Hollywood standards (whatever they are).

Everything about this picture is beautiful, even the ugliness is beautiful...an oxymoron, but the only way I can describe it. This is a stunning tale of 16th century sex and violence, with a dirty realism, but still an overlay of beauty.

Isabelle Adjani is intense, beautiful, and sensuous as Margot, the highly sexed, intelligent and dutiful sister of the doomed King Charles IX of France. She is forced into a marriage of political and religious convenience by her bitterly ambitious mother, Catherine de Medici (Virna Lisi) to the repulsive Henri Navarre (sympathetically played by Daniel Auteuil). There is a tremendous amount going on, and Margot's incest with her brothers is more than hinted at.

The searingly sensual Vincent Perez plays La Mole, who eventually becomes Margot's doomed lover. Their first encounter is an acrobatic feat of anonymous sex in an alleyway that is breath-taking. Their later love scenes are intensely erotic. This film only becomes better on repeat viewings. I found I was able to grasp more on my second viewing. There is so much going on, so many twists and turns and shocks, and the film is also quite long. It never lags, and even Margot's grudging tolerance, if not love, for her husband, is believingly portrayed. Very highly recommended.