"Marie Antoinette" (2006) - Movie Review

Sofia Coppola's “Marie Antoinette” is an artistic strawberry flavoured projection on the Queen of France who was notably denigrated for her extravagant spending which eventually led her to be guillotined. The film breaks barriers on how historical films are made but does not make a mark on itself. It has punk rock songs as soundtracks and a visible scent of modern fashion in the traditional dress. As a representation of art and the overall beauty it works but fails mid way as a film.

Been married as a political trade off to Louis Auguste (Jason Schwartzmann) at the age of 15, Marie Antoinette (Kirsten Dunst) grows her teenage life in the palace of rules and customs. Both Louis and Marie are young, and hence have shy approach towards sex. In days where queens used as the outlet mall for future kings, this only increases the pressure. With political gain, the urge is more. Antoinette is a kid and apart from open gossiping about her inability to woo Louis, she gets her reminder of her duties through letters from her Austrian mother. Coppola as any director of art who loves the visual and with France the center and genesis of fashion employs it neatly and lovely. My mentioning of the film as strawberry projection comes from the light pink occupying around the palace passionately and yet does not hurt the eye.

Antoinette’s handling from Austria to France is shown in grace with shame. The dressing and the acceptance are strangely interesting but a human been handled as a good is desecrating, and she is the future queen. She finds herself as the centre of attention but she does not boast or survive on it. As much as the history says that she spent unnecessarily, Coppola gives a girl coming of her age going through the boring routine of doing nothing. With always been surrounded by ten or more people who are constantly nudging on things to be done and how to follow, it can easily push any one of the edge. Antoinette finds fun and being young in her friends and resides gambling as her past time. In these happenings the one person we never to get to understand or for that matter of fact, Antoinette does not get is Louis. He is calm, shy and boyish. He loves his wife but in shambles on what to do with/to her. The same reflects when he becomes the king.

Watching “Marie Antoinette” is a street fair which looses its value as it gets too long. The cotton candies are eaten, the shows have been seen and the ogling is done, it is time to go home. The progress in the attitude of Marie is lethargic but it is reflective of the palace lifestyle. Is Coppola trying to invocate the monotonous spiritless life boasted as colourful and entertaining on us? If so, she succeeds. It is the aim and providing that needs care and consideration. And Coppola tips us off the line by extending some and compressing a lot later. Hence as we are on the verge of knowing the kid grown into a woman, she is already a mother of three in a span of twenty minutes.

Kirsten Dunst’s thin and tiny frame aids in showing the growing age of the girl towards being a woman suitably. And in her performance we see a maturity which we never see in the Spiderman chronicles. She is not annoying for the first fact and secondly she makes Marie Antoinette a lovable person. But indeed she is, as any one might now know the real story at all, and we see the rumours spreading not projecting who she really is. She did spend a lot as the history speaks but in Coppola’s film we see that as a part of a reaction to boredom. Wrong routing of money and bad publicity cost her reputation and later her life.

From where I would have loved the film, it declined rapidly in to a characterless motion picture. The costumes are gorgeous and the pastries transpire its scent invigorating our taste buds to smell the sweet. The soundtracks are surprisingly suitable and open up new doors to its application in historical films. The locations are splendid and the characterization fails which should have been the audible part in a biopic like this. The materials were there quite abundantly at the beginning of the film and as the character of Marie gets clueless she takes the film along with it.