Film: Marie Antoinette

Directed by: Sofia Coppola

Language: English

Year: 2006

Starring: Kirsten Dunst, Jason Schwartzman, Asia Argento, Judy Davis, Rip Torn, Marianne Faithfull

Reviewed by: The Zombieslayer

I'm currently watching a bunch of movies done by women directors, and the director I'm studying now is Sofia Coppola. Luckily, I'm done with Penny Marshall. My God! One more Penny Marshall film and I'll probably shoot a hole in the fucking television.

Sofia Coppola at one time was the most hated person in Hollywood. She was the scapegoat for The Godfather III, which wasn't as bad as critics said it was. It just had big expectations to live up, which it failed to do.

Coppola did a wonderful job with Lost in Translation, for which if I'm not mistaken she was nominated for an Academy Award. Marie Antionette is her new one.

For those with ADD, forget it. It has slow pacing and takes awhile to get going. But once it does, it's a watchable movie.

As you may know, Marie Antionette was that French Queen who supposedly said "let them eat cake" when the peasants complained they had no bread to eat. In reality, she never said that. She was however too young and inexperienced to be Queen. Coppola did a good job at showing this, how she went from being a shallow, rich, spoiled teenager to having to steer a nation in heavy debt, of which she contributed to.

The movie starts with Marie Antionette getting stripped naked because she had to get rid of all her Austrian possessions, including her beloved Austrian puppy. It's French custom. Then she got to meet her future father-in-law and future husband (arranged marriage).

The what were supposed to be sex scenes were classic. Marie Antionette spent a year or so trying to get the King to be interested in her, for she was supposed to produce an heir to the King of France or else her marriage might get annulled. Instead of being seduced, the King often fell asleep or talked endlessly about locks.

Coppola was fair. She showed her faults. She showed how lost she was at first, and how even when things started to go bad, she had no idea how to correct it. She had no experience in political matters, and when the nation's debt kept rising, she kept partying. I'm thankful though to Louis XVI and Marie Antionette, for they were the ones who funded the American Revolution, something Coppola did remind us of.

Visually, the producers spent a fortune. This had to be one of the best visual films I've ever seen, and that's really saying something. The costumes were magnificent, and they even filmed the movie in the real Versailles.

The cast was well casted. Kirsten Dunst played her part as the lost and ineffective Queen perfectly. Asia Argento played Louis XV's mistress. Marianne Faithful played Marie Antionette's Austrian mother. And Jason Schwartzman played the young King, who seemed to be more interested in hunting and locks (like locks and keys) than running his nation.

I've heard a lot of other reviewers complain about the 80s post-punk soundtrack, but the soundtrack worked. The pacing however was slow. Coppola spent too much time on their excesses and not enough time on what was going on in France. Some scenes outside of Versailles would have made the movie a lot more enjoyable to those who didn't know the historical background of the movie.

Still, a very watchable movie, and visually pretty. Seven dead zombies.

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