deerwalkby

This unfortunate event mirrors in many ways what happened in the January 6th event in the United States. People gather to protest corruption and excess profit taking by oligarchs. Government authorities and rich men collaborate to implicate a populist leader and the peaceful gathered populace into a supposed riot. Violence is unleashed on them and people are killed. This is done under the leadership of an absent mentally ill head of state and his corrupt self indulgent son. Laws supposedly preventing the assembly are recited in a building nearby then claimed to have been proclaimed to the crowd. The upper class's contempt for the lower classes was revealed and the lower classes began to realize their power to ask for reform.

Not recommended. Very slow paced and boring, a lot of staring at each other and into the distance. The usual attempt to seem earnest which passes for acting. The reason why and the timing for proclaiming William's son his heir to the troops is poorly explained. He just walks up to the recreational camp fights, tells them in a casual way, then walks away casually. Nobody appears to have a retinue or bodyguards. I watched for about an hour, fell asleep on it, and decided it wasn't worth my time. I want to learn more about William the Conqueror's life, circumstances, and motivations, not just waste my time on an art film.

I'm surprised at the low rating, this is a well done documentary with lots of original source material. It's not one of those terrible reenactments with awful actors and barely passable costumes. The Archduke Franz Ferdinand surprisingly ends up as the heir apparent of the Austro Hungarian Empire at the turn of the twentieth century, after a series of mishaps and deaths among other family members. It's so interesting the way the emperor looks down on his successor, the Archduke, because he only married nobility not royalty. Even though Sophie has to renounce any rights to a title the couple are very happy together and with their three children. But when the archduke and Sophie are assassinated by a Serbian terrorist the emperor feels the need to make a political statement by going to war against the country the assassin came from, thus triggering World War I.