Les rois maudits

Just sat through the 5 films of this series, about 7,5 hours in total. I have to say I left the seat with mixed emotions. The stuff itself is interesting, the dialog well written. But there is a lot to tip the scales to the negative. When I say the production is cheap, I don't mean it's done on a shoestring budget: on the contrary. There are lavish production numbers, gigantic sets, and probably Gerard Depardieu's fee for a typical 10 minute walkover, designed to save a mediocre film, is stellar in itself. I'm thinking more of the emotional and stylistic poverty that flies in your face every now and then. It's a total mishmash of intentions: the writers seem to have striven towards a historically correct, serious drama (as far as I understand it's a pretty close remake of an early 70s series). The casting director has herded together an international cast of actors with very different styles and abilities. There are good, insightful performances, such as given by Tchéky Karyo and Julie Gayet; then there are cheesy, dubbed, but enjoyable performances (Luca Barbareschi); and finally there are totally atrocious, bad, plain wrong performances such as Jeanne Balibar's Béatrice d'Hirson, who walks and talks like a heavily painted, booze soaked 1940s film noir tramp, dresses like Lady GaGa and at one point even wears yellow rubber gloves in a laboratory (in the year of our good Lord 1315). There's a limit to everything.

Towering over everyone is the great immortal Jeanne Moreau, who probably couldn't care less who she has to act against and tear to pieces (yes, it's a blood sport up there) and is engaged solely in giving a tour de force performance to forever silence all other actresses around her. No wonder the director(s) found this Sodom and Gomorrah of great personalities unmanageable, so he (they) just didn't give a damn and instead of a flowing narrative gave us a random selection of scenes and episodes. Everything is lit in a cheap (yes, I've said it), sharp, colorful giallo light, making it Eurotrash at the best and a made-for-cable quickie at the worst. Only this quickie lasts for hours on end.

The cherry on the top is the art direction. It's absolutely impossible to grasp the intentions of the dress, make up and set departments. The costumes are a mix of Mad Max and Xena with an occasional "period gown" thrown in to add to the confusion. I already mentioned the yellow rubber gloves and sexy latex leotards worn by Miss Balibar. It gets worse as the series progress. Jeanne Moreau gets to change her outfits almost in the middle of her scenes. In her glossy glamour dresses, shoulder pads, Ascot hats, wearing heavy modern lipstick and beauty pageant hairdos, she looks like an eighties transvestite, but nobody seems to notice or object to that. It seems many of the actresses just walk to the set with whatever they had on. The illusion keeps chattering, if ever there was one.

The sets... where do I begin? Sure, they had the money. Perhaps the producers were afraid that a historical epic wouldn't sell well enough, so a set design genius was brought in to "update" the Gothic world. Obviously heavily influenced by the Riddic Chronicles, the action seems to take place in a gigantic space ship. Unless it takes place outdoors. In that case it seems to take place on Venus, since in every single outdoor shot there is a superimposed 3D heaven with supernova effects, bright red / blue / green / purple clouds and a wind speed of at least 600 MpH. There is also a very interesting scene where they build a Gothic cathedral. If you watch carefully, you'll learn, that they actually built top-down.

Watch it, enjoy it, be blown away. Not quite what it could have been, but never a dull moment.

A lot has been made of the sets and backgrounds.. Philippe Druillet, the artist behind the sets, is an iconic sci-fi graphic novelist. He created 'Lone Sloane'in the mid-60s; unlikely, then, that he is much influenced by the Riddick franchise as suggested above. Anyway, he was never going to come up with anything conceptually accurate to the 14th Century, that's for sure! Not a good idea to get hung up on historical accuracy of plot or costumes, either. Druon wrote a novel loosely based on historical fact. The curse on which the whole premise is based is folklore, even the eye-watering demise of Edward II may be urban mythology... It is a wee bit like remaking "I Clavdivs" but with a Giger/Lynch vibe going on. The stylised acting and shoogly sets of the original with some seriously dodgy Goth overlays. It didn't impress me as much as the original, but French TV in the 70s was truly awful and expectations are so much higher....murderous Moreau worth the price of admission!

Firstly I must state I have only seen part 1 of an apparent 5 part series.

And I am glad I did. I have great interest in this period of history and - told by the French - in French - made it all the more enjoyable.

The production is sublime with modern ... improvements like the lighting in castles sometimes obviously artificial (ie: not mere torches) and some racy female costumes (for the period).

The acting was excellent and includes long time favorites like Gerard - and the actress that plays Queen Isabelle is so pretty.

Generally this story is based on fact.

Unless part 2 is awful (doubtful) I am hooked already.

Recommended!

Basically, because they could. The original series was and probably still is the best and most literate TV series ever made on this planet. The producers of this remake kept, for the most part, the very same dialogs, which is a very good thing, but have also shortened and simplified them (a.k.a. dumbing down), which robs the characters of their individuality and turns them into soap opera nimrods. They also "glamourized" many parts and replaced the very stylized, evocative and economical sets of the first series - which truly channelled the spirit of medieval illustrations while giving precedence to the acting, the character development, the story and the costumes - with impressive 3-D sets and some amazing CGI work and special effects. What they couldn't replace was Jean Piat's and Hélène Duc's talent and presence. The new cast is stellar but today's actors just pale by comparison with what came before... Whereas Hélène Duc was malevolence incarnate, Jeanne Moreau just aged badly and is scary to look at... They also couldn't replace Georges Delerue's genius in the music department and they used every opportunity given them to show every execution, rape, hanging, torture scene, burning at the stake, etc. in lurid and sadistic detail, something they learned from the so-called euro historical dramas of the last decade, which I call the history-as-a-series-of-body-fluids school and which owes more to Quentin Tarantino than Maurice Druon. What was only suggested is now shown without any shame or embarrassment. I'm not sure this is progress. But you'll certainly get a great many people riveted to their TV screens and maybe get a few of them to actually buy and read the book when they are sufficiently recovered from the shock...

Doing a remake of Les Rois Maudits is a little like doing a remake of Citizen Kane. You've got an awful lot of pressure! The text is powerful but most of the actors can't get a hold of it. Mind you, the producers have mostly hired good actors, but in many instances (Philippe Torreton for example), they can't get inside their characters, because it's not in their range. Others, like Julie Depardieu or Jeanne Moreau in some instances, are just pathetic!

Josée Dayan, the director, has a reputation for not taking many shots, so that the actors play on their "first energy". The result is interesting in some scenes, but you often get the feeling that there isn't any actor direction at all, which is very dangerous with this text, which requires some kind of classical training for the actors (No wonder the best actor was Eric Ruf, of La Comédie Française).

No wonder why in most stores in Paris you see more space for the 1972 version than for this year's!