Nelly
I give this film a 7.5, but without fractions I'd have to round it up to 8.This is a big budget film, an $18m film, which in today's dollars is around $30m. Considering that production costs are lower in France, this film would cost much much more in the US. It looks expensive.The costumes, sets and everything, look completely realistic, which is a big feat. Many productions making period pieces fall into cheap, Halloween-costume territory or incredibly pristine, clean and freshly-pressed cosplay-like costumes. It's easy to look like a clown, especially with costumes from that time, but they didn't. They look very real.The fighting and murders look very convincing as well. It is not too gruesome, but quite long. I know that shorter versions of this film exist, but I don't say "cut, cut, cut" but montage. A faster-paced montage could've told us the scale of the murders without having to spend so much time showing each individual kill.The music by Bregovic is brilliant. His adaptation of Balkan folk songs, Balkan rock, Serbo-Croatian, Gypsy and other influences and adapt them in a renaissance style gave this film a unique feeling and mood. I'm glad they didn't just take some standard renaissance music or make a soundtrack from Celtic and French music of the era.The acting is very good, as is the story, but I was expecting more of an ending. I wish we had told in text that the prophecy had come true and that Catherine de Medici's sons bore no heirs, leaving the throne to Henri. This is a strange omission, especially since they had a scene specifically telling us of the prophecy.I wish France, or anyone really, would make more films like this, but people want more Warcraft and less drama.
gavin6942
Young Queen Margot finds herself trapped in an arranged marriage amidst a religious war between Catholics and Protestants. She hopes to escape with a new lover, but finds herself imprisoned by her powerful and ruthless family.Alright, I had no idea that this was based on the 1845 historical novel "La Reine Margot" by Dumas. I had no idea he wrote such a book, or that an earlier version had been filmed. And most importantly, I have no idea how accurate any of this is. For the sake of cinema, I suppose it doesn't matter.The truth is at least partially here, because the romance is real and there really was a St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, though I don't think it is very well known today, especially in the United States. (We are woefully ignorant of European history.) Margot (or Margaret of Valois) remains an interesting character, if for no other reason than that she is an ancestor of the current royal family in England.
Spondonman
I don't pretend to know the minutiae of the historical record, but it was Definitely Not Dumas, or I lost it all in the English translations! Like many others I've always been fascinated by this episode in French history, a turbulent and savagely intolerant period and not only in France, but 1572 is yet another year that went down in infamy. This film portrays the complicated machinations performed by Catherine de Medici and her cohorts in furthering her Catholic ambitions for her country and debauched family against the perceived threat of dour Protestantism, and centred around the St. Bartholomew Day Massacre.It's the rather beautiful Isabelle Adjani's stunning performance as Queen Margot that can leave you as breathless as she often is in the film, without her it would have been a much poorer film. She seemed to live the part, with every emotion imaginable on display. Would French breathlessness, or those huge rustling dresses sound as good dubbed into English?! On the other hand the rest of the cast are superb in their roles too, but especially Daniel Auteuil as Henri de Navarre and Jean Hugues Anglade as Charles IX, making them both extremely believable sympathetic characters when they weren't. The bloodbath and the anarchy of the Massacre and aftermath is vividly presented we are not spared a single thing in the entire film, all manner of violence and depravity is non-gratuitously displayed. It's impossible to convey a part of what happens in this film the same as it must have been impossible for the film to convey a fraction of what happened in that era too: it really is a must-see. I've seen it a number of times now since 1994 and I find something new I hadn't spotted before every time. It's a film that can make you realise (if you didn't before) that millions of ordinary folk all around the world could and still can believe in such arrant religious nonsense to the point of committing multiple ghastly murders in the name of empty air.Apart from all that, it's a beautifully crafted film, the best of its kind there's ever been.
marianaruiz1982
For the American people that have seen this excellent French movie, I will say just one thing: in many countries around the world we get to see movies from abroad with subtitles. Most of the movies that we see in South American countries come either from North America or Europe and we don't usually complain about the subtitles. Only kids movies are dubbed in Spanish. A great part of the romance or charm about French movies comes from the fact that they are actually spoken in French. Nobody in these films expects the rest of the world to understand as they speak but to make a little effort and appreciate the beauty in each language is something I think is missing in American culture. I've seen nothing but comments on how difficult it was for some members of the American public to understand this film. I only ask myself: in times of globalization, isn't it interesting to learn from people from other parts of the world in their own language, specially a French film based on a French novel by the French Alexandre Dumas, placed in the 16th century, directed by one of France's best directors and acted by some of the most wonderful French actors and actresses of the last decades? Would you want to see this film in English? Sorry, but I think you would be missing a great deal of the depth and emotion of this unique film!!!
AD
