In 1386 the last judiciary duel was held in France. Not the for all time final, mind you, but the last judicial one. Meaning the one deciding life of death for the participants.
The participants here were Sir Jean de Carrouges and squire Jacques Le Gris. Once bros and now bitter foes. The charge was rape, Le Gris stood accused of raping de Carrouges’ wife. A charge so serious that men got to fight to the death about it while the rape victim herself stood to be burned at the stake should her defender prove less than able fighter. Fun times in Medieval Europe, right? Anyway, that’s how this movie starts. A dynamic duel, two formidable opponents facing off while the mad king Charles VI giggles in the stands. It appears, he was easily amused. Plus, you know, there were no tvs back then. So, anyway, the once upon a time and forever bro team are back (have they actually worked together since Good Will?) and decidedly politically correct about it. Adding a woman to their writing tea, they adapted this older nonfiction book quite excellently, cleverly dividing it into three sections, since there are three sides to every story, especially ones that resemble a triangle. That’s right, unlike in Medieval France, a woman here is given a proper if oppressed by circumstances voice. Her story is last. After the self-aggrandizing tale of the righteous knight de Carrouges and the self-justifying tale of the preening squire Le Gris, we get to find out about the real sequence of events from the Marguerite de Carrouges herself. It is, unsurprisingly, grim. The movie is by turns a lavish historic actioneer the likes of which you’ve come to expect from Ridley Scott, the clever character-driven tale from the surprisingly good writing team and a #MeToo tale of yore. As such it is uneven. But also, strangely compelling for such a gory bombastic bonanza of a movie. There’s some fascinating casting going on here too. The writers have cast themselves, a pair of strikingly unMedieval looking bros, as the knight and the count who hates him, adding distinctly European looking Adam Driver in the mix for some authenticity. The authenticity stops there. The three of them don’t even try for an accent, adopting instead a sort of clear overpronunciation of certain words. What they go wildly for is hair. The knight gets a killer mullet. The count gets a platinum blonde short ‘do with matching eyebrows and a goatee. The squire gets long flowing locks, because he’s the stud here and also because it’s difficult to imagine Driver with hair that isn’t his hair, but maybe longer. The women had some really fascinatingly ugly hairstyles back in the days, notably the wheels on the side of heads situation a la queen. Or the knight’s mother do’, now there’s a perfectly medieval looking actress. And then there’s Marguerite. A lesser-known actress, one of a British tv fame, a somewhat surprising choice to be cast opposite some of the world’s most famous male stars, btu there it is. And she holds her own. Her almost pretty and expressive face lands itself nicely to the character so much of whose life is meant to be repressed and internalized by her circumstances and time. The rest…well, the characters are taken through a significant length of time throughout the movie, though not given to any frivolities like aging. And the fighting scenes here are Ridley Scott’s-specialty brutal, the duel itself is a masterpiece of visceral brutality. It’s lush and lavish as far as historical dramas go, of this there’s no question. And with its pro-feminist message, it’s as timely as pandering gets. Feminism is probably something testosterone-driven bonanzas like this never had to think twice about until now and it is strange to see the combination. Interesting, but strange. It’s like here’s this huge boy movie with something for the girls. See? Aren’t we clever in our inclusivity? Well, are they? It remains unclear. The box office says otherwise, the movie has barely recouped (at the time of this review’s publication) not even a third of its 100 million budget. Personally, I found it sufficiently entertaining (and not just because of the hair) and reasonably dynamic for its unwieldly 153-minute length. For whatever that’s worth to you.
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