Marie Antoinette

Wednesday, 30 of May , 2007 @ 10:32 am

Tags: Marie Antoinette

Have you guys seen Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette? I just watched it today. I know, I’m a loser, but anyway.

Did you like it?

I didn’t. I’m probably the only one who didn’t.

The best I can say about this movie is it’s very artistic, in more ways than one. But thats also the worst thing about it. Have you ever looked at a piece of art, like a dance, painting or a song, that made you go “What the fuck is that? You call that art? I don’t get it.” It’s something like that - I just didn’t get this movie.

Admittedly, it’s a very lovely film to watch, very easy on the eyes. Marie Antoinette is an aesthetically beautiful movie - it has the most stunning sets, dresses, clothes, jewels, tapestries, furniture, make-up and everything in between. The ladies looked like walking Sonja’s cupcakes. The color combination is gorgeous, too. There isn’t a frame in this film that isn’t bursting with color. Notice how the colors of the sets and the dresses blend so well. Every intricate detail was meticulously taken care of, from the crystals in the chandeliers, to the blue and yellow flowers on the wall tapestries, to the diamonds in the shoe buckle of the Queen’s shoes. Marie Antoinette is the most eye candy historical film I’ve seen.

But Sofia Coppola took another artistic leap-of-faith, which for me wasn’t effective at all - the deliberate use of anachronism. To put it plainly, she placed all sorts of verbal expressions, music and even a few items that were not even possible in the 18th century. If you’ve seen the movie, notice a blue pair of Chuck Taylors in that scene where Marie Antoinette was trying on a lot shoes. Coppola said it was to show the viewers that Marie Antoinette was still just a teenager, regardless of time period. Um, huh? I know it’s artistic license and all, but come on! What the hell was that for? You could do without that. And I couldn’t stand the modern alternative/rock background music that didn’t even fit the scenes they were in. I mean, shouldn’t they be playing Baroque music or something? It doesn’t help that the songs they picked were annoying. I hate it! It doesn’t make sense at all!

Okay, I suppose you think I’m too narrow-minded to appreciate this novel approach to historical fiction. Actually, I do like a few period movies that use anachronism, like Shakespeare in Love, A Knight’s Tale and Titus Andronicus. Those were entertaining and effective even if some words and items were completely out-of-place. Marie Antoinette failed to incorporate those modern elements seamlessly. The modern music and Chucks were incredibly lame attempts at making Marie Antoinette relate-able to this generation. It was unnecessary. I think Sofia Coppola tried to hard to be unconventional.

But what I hated most was this movie barely had any dialogue. What the hell! If you compress all the dialogue in this movie, it will probably last just 30 minutes or so. And because it had almost no dialogue, there was barely any story at all. Only disjointed scenes from Marie Antoinette’s life. No transitions whatsoever. It was like hopping from one event of Marie Antoinette’s life to the next, not knowing how the previous one connects with the current. It became boring. It made me go, “What the fuck just happened? What the fuck just happened?”

Lots of people would probably like this movie a lot, but not me. It had too much art that it didn’t mesh well together anymore. The anachronism was unnecessary and poorly executed. I was disappointed. Marie Antoinette is one of my favorite historical European royals. Her life is fascinating, and I think it could’ve been interpreted better.

I just didn’t get this movie. Really.

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