2006: Marie Antoinette

Marie Antoinette (Sofia Coppola, 2006) 10/10

"This is ridiculous" (Marie Antoinette)
"This Madame is Versailles" (Comtesse de Noailles)

Was there a film more critically misunderstood in 2006 than Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette?

Critics derided the film's apparent lack of historical insight, while audiences expecting a dialogue-driven period film were befuddled by Coppola's post-punk soundtracked sugary vision. Adapted from Antonia Fraser's acclaimed biography, Coppola's film is a revisionist epic, which is influenced less by authentic historicism and more by Coppola's filmic interest in examining isolated women trapped in societies alien to their concerns and needs.

Tracking Marie-Antoinette's rise from sheltered Austrian royal to despised foreign Queen of Bourbon France, the film focuses on the difficulties and tribulations affecting a teenage girl (Kirsten Dunst) forced into a political marriage with an incompetent Dauphin who later become Louis XVI (Jason Schwartzman). In its basic sub-text, Marie Antoinette is an extension of the embattled portrayals of womanhood Coppola analyzed in Lost In Translation and The Virgin Suicides.

Thus, the film is social commentary disguised in the conservative confines of the period epic. Conservative however is not a word to best describe Marie Antoinette: a visually gorgeous and contextually anachronistic film that re-writes the genre's sturdy rule-book. This is a film bristling with vitality on the surface and critically examining human nature underneath it.

Coppola begins her film by striking an important dichotomy between the royal courts at Vienna and Versailles. Housing the Austrian royal family, the Austrian court is sparse in its decor and dull in its colourization. In Vienna, the members of the court interact with one another on an informal basis through physical interaction. Upon her arrival into Bourbon France, Marie-Antoinette is subjugated to antithetical French modes of decor and deportment. She is stripped of her foreign clothing, but is reluctant to relinquish her ideals. Instantly, Marie-Antoinette abhors the rigid logistics of French protocol in which personal emotion is shunned and privacy is non-existent. Whereas the Viennese palaces Marie-Antoinette grew up in contained only her family, the court at Versailles as built by Louis XIV houses an entire city consisting of royals and French nobility.

Located ten miles from Paris, The Palace of Versailles was constructed by Louis XIV in order to control the nobility in a paradisal country setting. When Marie-Antoinette inquires about visiting Parisian operahouses, a noble sneeringly remarks "Why go to Paris, when you can have the opera come to you!" After the death of the Sun King, the problems of operating the government within this isolated community became painfully obvious. The world Marie-Antoinette enters is a community accustomed to haute coutre, back-stabbing and privilege, yet blissfully ignorant of the economic and social crises occurring a little more than ten miles away.

By neglecting to provide any exterior historical information, Coppola aims to insert her audience into a world self-insulated from the painful realities surrounding them. In Marie Antoinette Coppola exposes the hypocrises and sheer boredom of a life filled with monotonous routine. Through the film's sharply crafted editing by Sarah Flack, Coppola shows the apathetic responses of a fourteen year-old teenager to the protocol of a stagnant aristocracy. By way of these responses, Coppola posits her title character as a rebellious teenager who attempts to push boundaries. Her decision to applaud theatrical performances, go to Parisian parties and flirt with other men such as Swedish officer Count Fersen (Jamie Dornan) puts her at odds with the modes of decorum prescribed by her advisors Comtesse de Noailles (Judy Davis) and Ambassador Mercy (Steve Coogan).

Even as a blue-blooded woman in the late 18th century, there are very few avenues of power at Marie-Antoinette's disposal. The most viable method of influence available to Marie-Antoinette is through her sexuality. The need to provide an heir to the throne is crucial to the survival of a fragile Franco-Austrian alliance, which Marie-Antoinette's marriage to the future King Louis XVI is expected to cement. However, Louis is more interested in hunting and lock-making and thus the pressure on Marie-Antoinette to consumate the marriage intensifies.

With the strain of a loveless marriage and the fate of two empires resting upon her teenage shoulders, Marie-Antoinette shuns her responsibility and finds temporary happiness in rabid materialism. In a seemingly never-ending blitz of cakes, shoes and champagne, Marie-Antoinette frivolously splashes the Bourbon fortune in order to obtain some method of control and individuality in her life. However, this lifestyle dissipates after the birth of her first born Marie-Therese. Through this child, Marie-Antoinette garners an element of control and influence; allowing her to reside on a quaint provincial farm, which allows her to indulge in her favourite pursuits such as a hands-on lifestyle raising her daughter in a parochial abode filled with artists, flowers and plain white dresses.

As history records, this world came crashing down in 1789. Following the recommendations of his advisors, Louix XVI begins to financially aid the American Revolution in order to antagonize their imperial rivals across the English Channel and demonstrate French military strength. Yet, the might the French wish to propagate is vacuous. Bankrupted by erratic spending, Louis XVI calledl upon the French Parliament (Les États-Généraux-) for the first time since 1614 in order to obtain funds to refill the royal coffers. In 1789, France still operated on an archiac system of taxation in which the clergy and nobility were exempt from taxation, which placed the financial burden of the nation-the empire even- on the lower classes and an emerging bourgeoisie. But the Estates-General composed of the nobility, the clergy and the French population were tired of the King's abandonment of his citizenry. Ironically influenced by the French-funded American revolutionaries, the Estates-General called upon social reforms, which decreased the King's power. While Louis XVI attempted to resist these reforms, the damage was already done.

In Marie Antoinette, Sofia Coppola does not show these exterior events beyond whispers and gossip. This heightens the overall effect of the film's stunning final shot of a once lavish room swiftly tattered and broken by the outside world: paralleling that of Marie-Antoinette and her young family. Sumptously shot by Lance Acord, Marie Antoinette is a sparsely scripted film, which relies on the power of its exquisitely beautiful images and strong performances by an excellent cast featuring Dunst, Schwartzman, Davis, Rip Torn, Asia Argento, Molly Shannon, Danny Huston and Steve Coogan.

Booed at Cannes, Marie Antoinette went onto to become an undeserved North American box-office failure: raking in domestically fifteen million of its forty million dollar budget. While Coppola's film was unable to find a contemporary audience, its aesthetic beauty and directorial acumen should enable this film to become a forgotten masterpiece. A richer film than Coppola's lauded Lost In Translation, Marie Antoinette will be a spectacular find for future cineastes and critics a quarter century from now.

The best film of 2006.

* Marie Antoinette is available through Sony Home Video

Copyright 2007 8½ Cinematheque