Marie Antoinette: Life in a Bubble

A few brief comments on Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette starring Kirsten Dunst, which I finished watching last night.

The cover of this DVD really does tell the story. A Hollywood teen plays at living inside the royal courts of France two centuries past. The prominence of bright pinks and pastel blues carries throughout the film. It's all about style, powder, silks and gowns, and excess.

The movie begins with young Marie (Dunst) being requested by her mother to be wed to young Louis. Initially the film focuses more on the humiliations of being the dauphine than on the power she had. Ultimately, the film never deviates from its one aim, to show how Marie Antoinette lived in her strange royal world.

As the film goes along, however, I could not help but make comparisons to another film about how the rich lived in days gone by, the superbly crafted and beautifully tragic Vatel, starring Gerard Depardieu. Vatel reveals what continuously remains absent in Coppola's film, the contrast between the privileged and the impoverished.

There is one brief scene in Antoinette that refers to her infamous remark, "Let them eat cake." The spin here is that she never made the statement and dismissed any need to have to defend herself in the press. It's very possible that this was the case, but who can really say.

Coppola obviously did not wish for her heroine to be stained by all the grittiness that led to the French Revolution. Did she believe Antoinette to be above it? The way the film is told, I did feel sympathy for the young queen. But eventually, thoughtful viewers need more.

The sets are fabulous, the preening and pomp delicious, the re-creation of life in a Royal Court exotic… but as the film moves forward one gets the sense of being in a bubble. There is no true sense of historical context other than very brief hints.

The portrayal of her distracted husband Louis is likewise unreliable, as his legendary sexual dalliances would attest. The man portrayed here is simply too much a simpleton to be believed.

Those who know nothing of the real Marie Antoinette story would never surmise from the way this film ends that she is heading toward a beheading. Nor why such an end is even awaiting her. But then, such gruesome details might mar the delight modern audiences derive from this kind of period piece.

If you like a period story with reality as its base, the film to see is Vatel. Marie Antoinette, for me, got lost in translation.