Les Adieux A La Reine (Farewell, My Queen)

[selenak]

This was the opening film of the Berlin film festival which has just started here in Germany. It's based on a novel which I haven't read, so I can only talk about the film on its own merits. I found it worth watching, sometimes moving, and managing a very tricky balance indeed. The main character is Sidonie Laborde (played by Léa Seydoux), one of the readers (or the lectrice) of Marie Antoinette (Diane Krüger), and the time frame is only a few days in July 1789, around the outbreak of the French Revolution.

One of the big accomplishments is that the film manages to remain in Versailles - i.e. we don't get to "meet" the revolutionaries - and yet doesn't sentimentalize the Royals or the French nobility. Part of this is due to the fact that we see them from the servant's pov, and they are far from uniformly devoted (nor are the courtiers). Still, given that Sidonie's love for Marie Antoinette is a driving force of the film, you'd think there would still be some rose-coloured glasses thing going on, but no. This film's Marie Antoinette captures both the frivolty and the vulnerability; the narrative neither condemms nor glorifies her and gives her an elusive quality, with the moments of intimacy Sidonie thinks she gets rare and the queen the equivalent of a modern star, the object of passion and crushes (as well as loathing), but any sense of closeness is a construct, an illusion. Mind you: closeness with Sidonie. The other plot-driving force is Marie Antoinette's passion for her favourite Yolande de Polignac. (Historical footnote: the Princesse de Lambarde and then the Duchesse de Polignac were Marie Antoinette's closest friends, soundly hated by the populace at large - especially Yolande de Polignac, due to her family thriving to no end from the Royal favouritism - and accused of having lesbian affairs with the queen. Because Marie Antoinette's enemies were the ones who said it, her defendants dismissed it as slander. Though as rozk observed, that doesn't mean it wasn't true; we'll never know one way or the other.) I would say that makes it a triangle between three women, but one of the film's emotional punches is that Antoinette and Yolande aren't conscious of Sidonie as a woman in her own right and capable of feelings other than "devoted servant".

Which helps with the sentimentality avoidance. We're always in Sidonie's pov, and because we see her interact with servants and minor courtiers alike she comes across as a person not just defined by her pining for the queen. So the big climax of the film , which comes when Marie Antoinette, afraid for her favourite's life (btw, I remembered either Lamballe or Polignac were torn apart by the mob, but I didn't remember exactly which one when watching, which helped with the tension), tells Sidonie to disguise herself as Yolande de Polignac while the Duchesse is disguised as a servant while she makes her escape is gutwrenching, not least because this is when Sidonie understands, once and for all, who she is in this emotional equation: nobody. And it captures the entire privileged selfishness of monarchs and nobles without doing so in a cheap way. From her pov, Marie Antoinette is selfless, urging her beloved to escape while wishing she'd could keep Yolande with her in this horrible time, putting Yolande first, even though she suspects (not wrongly) that Yolande's feelings aren't as strong, and the Duchesse agrees to hightail it out of Versailles a little too quickly. The fact that she simultanously asks a young girl to volunteer for what would be a horrible death if things go wrong is something that doesn't even register. After all, Sidonie is a devoted servant (tm), and that's what Devoted Servants do.

Léa Seydoux is wonderful with the facial expressions throughout, with the few but pointed words, like "bait" which Marie Antoinette doesn't wish to hear, and then with the reckless courage and determination to mess with Yolande de Polignac's mind if she has to do this. I have no idea how the novel puts it, but the impression the film gave me was that while Sidonie is determined to see this through, this is it for her: she's now done with royalty and pining alike, and I was glad to see it.

The film is also good sketching various characters and relationships; Sidonie's friends among the servants - and incidentally, the film is great in presenting more of the servants' quarters of Versailles than I've ever seen before while also showcasing the big ornamental rooms - , the courtiers like the old Marquis who used to live for the two times a week he saw the king in the gallery and those who are aware enough of the approaching storm to leave while they still can, Madame Bertin the queen's dressmaker and Madame Compon, Sidonie's superior all come across vividly without confusing the viewer. That a film whose main relationships, platonic and otherwise, are all among women passes the Bechdel test goes without saying. All in all a good period piece, not a must but a watch it if you can.

Comments

[bimo]

All in all a good period piece, not a must but a watch it if you can.

... Which is exactly what I'm going to try, as your review makes the film sound quite worthwhile and I just noticed that it will be shown at the Filmforum Duisburg sometime towards the end of the month.

(I've never been able to resist a good period piece *g*)

[selenak]

One must use the rare advantage we have of being shown the film a year before the Americans instead of the usual reverse. :)

[kalypso]

Can't find any hint of showings here, does that mean we're waiting on the Americans too?

[selenak]

I have no idea!