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Rating: "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the most rock of them all?"
"It's you, Marie Antoinette!"
Marie Antoinette of Austria, insulted, stabbed in the back by those she cared for the most, condemned by history to remain etched in collective memory for the misunderstood phrase "The people don't have money to buy bread? Let them eat cake instead!", still erroneously considered today as stupid, frivolous, flirtatious, the worst ruler of all time. Perhaps it was precisely her image as a vain woman, unjustly transmitted to us by chronicles, that attracted various scholars, including Antonia Fraser, the author of a biography on the beheaded monarch. Sofia Coppola starts from this study to build a film seen as the final chapter of her trilogy on restless youth following her beautiful debut "The Virgin Suicides" and the acclaimed "Lost in Translation".
Francis Ford's daughter decides to go big and sets an appointment in 18th-century France with a stellar cast, featuring a very flashy Asia Argento-Du Barry and Judy Davis, with cinema professionals like costume designer Milena Canonero (winning her third Oscar after "Barry Lyndon" and "Chariots of Fire"). The score includes the New Order, The Strokes, Bow Wow Wow, Air, The Cure all together for a whimsical soundtrack and delights us with shots halfway between the delicate pastel tones of a Tiepolo canvas and the heaviest and kitschiest baroque in a riot of ribbons, bows, and lace.
The ever-angelic and ethereal Kirsten Dunst slips into the sumptuous garments of Marie Antoinette, the teenage daughter of the Austrian Empress Maria Theresa, portrayed by Marianne Faithfull. As customary among ancient royal families, the young maiden is betrothed to the French dauphin Louis XVI (Jason Schwartman). She is little more than a teenager and does not know what awaits her beyond the frontier. Indeed, she arrives in France with the best intentions but begins to detest court life for her poor inclination toward the ceremonious rituals held there, for the insincerity of the courtiers. The poor girl cannot even establish a good relationship with her new husband, who proves increasingly formal and aloof towards her, even in bed (the first part of the film is marked by her repeated attempts at some healthy sex, but he resists; consequently, no baby, no heir to the throne, the entire court against the queen and her potential sterility). This situation pushes Marie Antoinette towards the luxury of high society life, partying with friends, sweets, lots of champagne, lovers, and dresses (a combination straight out of "Sex and the City"). But her life is not composed only of this, but also of intellectual engagement and moments of great emotion. Unfortunately, once she becomes an adult and mature after indulging in splendor, she realizes that what she has seriously accomplished is rather scarce, that she has been a poor mother, and all she can do in her capacity as queen is to bow her head to the executioner.
It is fun to be bewildered by a film that tells life in Versailles in the 18th century like a long night of concerts from the '80s to today. Coppola's operation already has precedents, from the argumentative Daltrey in Russell's "Lisztomania" to Hulce's troublemaker in Forman's "Amadeus". After all, the story of a monarch intolerant of the confines of suffocating court life is not at all new, just mentioning the various Sissi portrayed by Romy Schneider. Sofia Coppola openly stated at Cannes that she was inspired by this cinema, but it is clear that the characters are set on different registers. Marie Antoinette is a young girl projected from the microcosm of her Austrian palace, pampered by a bevy of tutors and ladies-in-waiting under her mother's watchful eye, into a much colder reality that demands only from her. This transition is highlighted by a specific scene where Dunst is escorted to the border and there strips off her "Austrian" clothes to don the "French" ones, forced to bid farewell to her beloved little dog and to head to Paris amid tears and sobs, asserting that uniqueness of feelings that every teenager asserts towards the adult world. A moment of delicacy that contrasts with the final scene of the royal couple's bedroom, completely devastated by the revolutionaries who had stormed the palace, marked by a sad crudeness.
The vices she indulges in once she arrives in Paris are justified as a means of escape from the depressing relationship with her husband. Is this the beginning of the historical character's rehabilitation? No. Surely, it wants to make her appear less idiotic and malicious than we have been passed down, but its purpose is not to restore her historical dignity. If that were the case, the film would be undone because history is not reevaluated with a modern eye. Instead, the direction projects the character into modernity (just remember the Converse sneakers tucked among the rococo-style evening shoes). In reality, Sofia Coppola instrumentalizes the figure of the ruler to reiterate what she had already said in her previous works: the obsessive and oppressive attention devoted to young people today (depriving them of the proper space) already the main theme of her debut is highlighted here as well in numerous moments of the narrative (from the maids attending the queen's morning dressing to the pressures from her governess to evoke sexual desire in her husband), as well as the loss of oneself in the search for a purpose, maturity, life, and the consequent retreat into a golden and intimate world, a fundamental key to "Lost in Translation". Perhaps this weakens the film: the slight repetition of themes dealt with in the past.
In any case, it is too little to fail it.
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