Lady Oscar

I only read the first few chapters of the Rose of Versailles manga years and years ago, so this review is not coming from the point of view of someone biased against this film on the grounds of inaccuracy to the source material. Because even when measured on its own merits, Lady Oscar (1979)is a weak movie.

It's a shame, because this is a pretty production. The 18th century costumes and lavish sets are wonderfully realized, pastel-colored and almost fairy tale-like. They contrast well with the squalor of the lower classes. Michel Legrand's score is lovely and emotional.

Too bad everything else is borderline terrible. The dialogue ranges between passable and cringe-worthy. Exposition is delivered via clumsy lines and voice-over. The story is epic in scope, yet it rushes through events and years, leaving us little time to get to know the characters since the script is more obsessed with racing to the next plot point.

The acting is not wooden or too over-the-top, but it is incredibly weak all around. No one seems to contain much passion or enthusiasm for the material. The leading lady in particular possesses too little inner strength or charisma to hold our admiration. Heck, she's supposed to be a military officer and yet she cannot mount a horse without aid!

I was disappointed with Jacques Demy's direction, which had little verve or flow to it. It was as distant and disinterested in the action as the performers seemed to be. The editing was especially clumsy and confusing at moments.

The worst aspect of this movie may be the characters and the way they were written. Marie Antoinette is made into an idiot. Louis XVI is antagonistic. Andre is a creepy jerk. And Oscar is unbelievably wimpy for someone so respected by the other characters. Her appearance and manner are also not as androgynous as they should be.

I think this story could have made for a solid swashbuckling melodrama, but as it is, this feels like a lifeless TV movie. While I feel there is a good movie lurking within this mess, the few good things there are cannot save it from mediocrity.

As had been the case with Christian-Jaque's THE BLACK TULIP (1964), this is another French swashbuckler whom I first became aware of via the Japanese animated series I used to catch on Italian TV as a kid. Conversely, the film version of LADY Oscar proved to be more satisfying than that of THE BLACK TULIP, which is surprising given that the former is a maligned film within its distinguished director's canon. Having said that, along with his modernistic remake of Jean Cocteau's OPRHEE' (1950) entitled PARKING (1985), LADY Oscar had always been the one title I was most eager to catch from Demy's lean and near-invisible post-1973 period. It is ironic therefore that I have managed that feat before having acquainted myself with Demy's best-known and finest achievements of the early 1960s – which is all the more remarkable when one considers that LADY Oscar was a bastard international production: a Franco-Japanese joint venture shot in English with a cast of equally mixed nationalities and whose tangled worldwide distribution rights have made it impossible for even the British Film Institute to secure a screening in their renowned National Film Theatre in London for a 'complete' Jacques Demy retrospective in November 2007! Therefore, all the more power to Yamato Video, the Italian DVD production company who specializes in releasing vintage Japanese anime series (that were all the rage on Italian TV as I was growing up in the 1980s and early 1990s) for succeeding where others have failed; a gallery of trailers from their catalogue is available as a supplement on the LADY Oscar disc and watching it was "a blast from the past" for me as the saying goes!

Anyhow, back to the film at hand: the fairy-tale qualities of the historical narrative are ideal hunting grounds for Demy, who had already brought DONKEY SKIN (1970) and THE PIED PIPER (1972) to the screen – although, in this case, he drew inspiration from a Japanese comic strip rather than a local legend (albeit set in his native land). Needless to say, the film is a feast for the eyes when it comes to sets (some of the exteriors were actually shot on the Versailles Palace grounds) and costumes but, even if the work of Demy here seems not be counted among his finest achievements, a couple of elegantly sweeping camera movements (the clandestine meeting in the abandoned château between Queen Marie Antoinette and her Swedish lover) and well-mounted sequences (the vigorous fist-fight in the tavern) are certainly noteworthy; the same applies to the musical contribution of Demy's regular composer Michel Legrand. If there are distinct flaws, it's that the film moves at rather too deliberate a pace (with a running time of just over two hours) and has a needlessly unhappy ending.

In spite of the title, the narrative incorporates three parallel story lines that give a more sweeping picture of the tumultuous times it depicts (starting out in 1755 with the birth of Oscar and culminating in the storming of the Bastille that led directly to the French Revolution of 1789): Oscar's father had long wanted a male heir to follow him into his military career and when his wife dies in giving birth to yet another female, he determines to make a man of his newborn child regardless; while Oscar is eventually recruited as personal guard to Marie Antoinette, we follow the amorous exploits of the latter as well as the rise of one female peasant into aristocracy through devious schemes and callous behavior to her true peers (perhaps in emulation of the notorious Madame Dubarry whose name is mentioned at one point). In view of its origins as light-hearted kiddie fare, there is a surprisingly subversive undercurrent of sexual ambiguity in Oscar's imposed masculinity (and the fact that this starts a cross-dressing fad among the upper classes), the repressed feelings for her shown by the stable boy she grew up with, the full-blown kiss on the lips Oscar gives during her own supposed engagement party to a giggling young lady she's dancing with, etc.

Catriona MacColl looks just ravishing in the title role, both when dressed in her military outfit and also when she occasionally gives in to her womanhood (including a brief topless bit); this was her first film and arguably her best role since only another appearance for Demy and three in Lucio Fulci horror films – including CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD (1980) for which she even recorded an exclusive audio commentary for its R2 DVD! – really stick out from the rest of her filmography. Another beguiling presence in the film is undoubtedly that of Christine Bohm who plays Marie Antoinette; unlike MacColl (despite their being the same age), LADY Oscar proved to be her last film as she tragically died at 25 in an accident that same year. As for the male cast, the most prominent are Barry Stokes (as Oscar's stable boy companion and true love) and Martin Potter (as her jaded, titled but short-lived fiancé); incidentally, while they both had their artistic triumphs for major directors – in Juan Antonio Bardem's THE CORRUPTION OF CHRIS MILLER (1973) and Federico Fellini's FELLINI - SATYRICON (1969) – they each also worked for cultish British exploitation film-maker Norman J. Warren in, respectively, PREY (1978) and SATAN'S SLAVE (1976)!!

P.S. My amiably lazy feline pet goes by the name of "Lady Oscar": I had originally dubbed it Oskar – in tribute to one of my favorite foreign films THE TIN DRUM (1979) because, like its protagonist, my cat seems to have stopped growing of its own accord (while that of my aunt, which is of a similar breed and only a year or so older, has become quite huge!); my mother, unaware of this connection, insists on calling her "Lady" because, first of all, it's a female and, frankly, really does act royally and has the genuine impression that we're there to wait on it!!

To correct some inaccuracies in the above review, the anime "Rose of Versailles" came before "Lady Oscar," not afterward, and it was not targeted towards children. "Lady Oscar" is primarily based on the manga "Rose of Versailles" by Riyoko Ikeda, although it contains several plot differences from either anime or manga. The so-called "historical clichés" and the feminism the above reviewer cites are part of Ikeda's story and have nothing to do with the director of "Lady Oscar." I found the movie slightly disappointing in its variations from the anime and manga, but overall I liked it. It was nice to see the story of Lady Oscar presented in English, and I enjoyed seeing European actors filling the roles. Oscar's character differs greatly from her personality in the anime, but I found her much more personable in "Lady Oscar." I was disappointed, however, in the portrayal of Marie Antoinette as she was wholly flaky and unlikeable in "Lady Oscar" and lacked all the redeeming qualities she possessed in the anime. Also, the film overlooks the close nature of her relationship with Oscar as portrayed in Ikeda's manga.

The sad truth is that Jaques Demy is a horrible filmmaker. The much celebrated "Umbrella's of Cherbourg" was dreadful. Absolutely dreadful, but pretty in a stagy way. There isn't much you can say when you encounter something pretty but hollow. Of course it happens all the time to me, that I find movies with no soul. like girls trained to be empty.

But there is something notable when something is so very pretty as this is, and so very empty at the same time.

The provenance of this is at least interesting: a Japanese comic book. And if you wish to sit through it, you'll see copious references to "Barry Lyndon," on which this is clearly modeled. Now the magic of that was its carefully spaced vacuums. It had engineered emptiness, something that only a master could do.

This. This is just empty.

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

I've watched this movie once over ten years ago and again today. I have also watched the anime and read the manga at different parts of my life and have taken away different things at times.

The movie is called Lady Oscar but it honestly feels more like it should be called "Andre, the manservant" or something else entirely (Rose of Versailles would have been ever more appropriate than Lady Oscar), as Oscar doesn't feel like much of a centerpiece of this movie, we're hardly privy to her thoughts and feelings and it seems to be dictated and stripped of her agency but every other force.

I personally did not dislike the acting this time around, it looks and feels quite theatrical, which can be jarring since the trend has been naturalistic for a long time. The scenes though are very clumsily strung together and don't make sense if you don't have the knowledge of the manga/anime. For example near the end when we see Oscar transfer to the French Guards, they don't respect her. We don't see them again until much later when Oscar and the guards are stationed against the peasants and Oscar refuses to attack the people and the guards somehow follow her. What the movie decided not to show was the relationship Oscar built with the guards and gained their respect.

In general the movie despite being called Lady Oscar failed to show the qualities that make Oscar stand out as a character and that still stands out despite the passage of time. Oscar has a lot of internal conflict in the original source as well as physical prowess due to her training from a young age, she is also educated as she is a noble and very aware of the ideas of the revolutionaries. Instead in this movie Oscar's qualities are transferred onto Andre for some reason, elevating him to a totally different status and playing up the old tired cliche of the man saving the damsel in distress.

Regardless, I can understand that an adaptation is not always meant to be faithful and directors like to focus on specific themes of the original source and such a projected can be appreciated as a stand alone thing. This is where it hits the mark once more. This movie cannot stand alone and make sense or appear well-rounded. As I mentioned earlier the scenes are strung together clumsily and a lot of important stuff is mentioned and glossed over, and to think this movie is two hours. You cannot focus on both Marie Antoinette and Oscar in just two hours unless you do a masterful job of combining both sides, which could work I believe and of course you'd have to cut a big chunk of the manga and alter even more of it than has already been altered, which I would not be opposed to if it guaranteed a movie that could be watched, appreciated and evaluated as a stand alone piece.

Unfortunately though the movie requires you have some understanding of the happenings of the manga/anime that it refuses to spend more time on and its female lead is hardly likeable if you're a fan.

The actors also feel rather miscast, with Oscar appearing in full makeup for some reason and looking positively delicate and Andre looking quite macho despite being much more lithe in appearance and submissive in behavior. Marie Antoinette is also rather young and foolish, but her actress appears a lot older, which might be an informed choice to magnify her impulsiveness and lack of seriousness and understanding of the situation.

I feel like this would have worked a lot more as a theatrical play perhaps than a movie. For me it seems to lack the understanding of what makes the original appealing and especially a character like Oscar who you never see. And even if they decided to focus on themes instead of a character study, I feel like there are a lot more poignant movies out there with similar themes that work a lot better as a movie.

The ending was atrocious.