Saturday, April 18, 2009

Marie Antoinette (The Movie, 2007)

Cast : Kirsten Dunst, Jason Schwartzman, Judy Davis, Asia Argento
Writing & directed by Sofia Coppola

Okay, first of all, I must emphasize here that I am a huge fan of Queen Marie Antoinette. I honored her, respect her every acts; I read every biographies and stories about her, I even collect any information and pictures and whatever. Basicly, I'm crazy about Antoinette. Despite her lavish behaviour which led her to the monarchy downfall - and led her head to the guillotine - she was a great woman who stand to her pride and intended to keep it till the very last second of her life. And also - despite her title as a royalty, and her role as a Queen of France - she was just an ordinary woman - a woman in love, a wife, a mother, a human.

In this movie, Sofia Coppola presents the life of Antoinette in a rock'n'roll way. The story begins from the day that young Antoinette - Maria Antonia, her birth name - was told that she should marry the Dauphin of France. Then she left Austria - her hometown - and she had to adjust herself to the new life in French court. From the ridiculous protocols to extravagant balls and operas, Antoinette still had to face the fate of being an heiress to the royal family, that was to give birth to a future king. Unfortunately her husband - King Louis XVI - was not quite a capable person to fulfill his duty as a man, and that did not help Antoinette to have a baby. After the dead of King Louis XV, Louis XVI became the new king and that made Antoinette the new Queen, and the pressure to give birth an heir was getting bigger. As a compensation, Antoinette tried to runaway from her tight-air life in Versailles by having as much happiness as she could get - from fancy styles, masquerade balls, card gamblings, to a glamour new palace. And when she finally gave birth to a child - that was Princess Marie Therese, not a prince as expected, Antoinette was already drowned in her own world - and it drowned the poor France into revolution.

Since it was a true life story, the movie has its own great plot. Unfortunately, the writer could not re-tell the history in its true color. There are some plot that seems to be forced, I assume for the sake of duration. And even though the casts and the settings and all the props are terrific, but for a historic movie, I say it's a horrible horrible movie (I just have to say horrible twice). By the first half of the movie, I was nearly crying.

It's a movie about Antoinette! Why should i dislike it? Okay, I tell you why.

[+] First, Kirsten Dunst is SO NOT Antoinette. They should've cast another actress. I'm not saying Kirsten is a bad actress - no, she's great! Really - but she's just not suitable for the role.
Antoinette should posses an arrogant poise combined with childish attitude, but still graceful and as a royalty (and as stated in her biography), she wouldn't touch the common life.
And putting the same cast for young Antoinette was just ridiculous. At the first appearance, young Antoinette was FOURTEEN when her mother told her to marry the French prince. Fourteen, and there you see Kirsten Dunst? Oh please.
And Antoinette's lips should be more sensual than Kirsten's thin-lips :P
Over all, perhaps Reese Witherspoon, or Audrey Tautou, or Kate Hudson, or Anne Hathaway, or even Paris Hilton would be more suitable for the image. Or whoever.

[+] And Louis XVI should be fatter than Jason Schwartzman.

[+] But I agree that Asia Argento plays a great role as Madame Du Barry, she's just so into her :) Although, I thought Madame Du Barry should be more careful to her behavior in court, because even though she was a whore, but she was the woman who stood behind the King (Louis XV), and it was her dream to be honored as the other royal bloods in Versailles. So she should not burp at royal dinner. The scriptwriter made her a little bit over-reacted :P

[+] Also the cast for Count Fersen is just perfect. In reality, Count Fersen was as gorgeous as him to lure the Queen into a love at a first sight. But his appearance is too short and I don't understand why Sofia made him as "having a bad reputation" ? Count Fersen is one on Swedish ambassador, a gentleman and not merely a seductive soldier :E

[+] I'm not sure about the cast for Comtesse Polignac. Hmm. Can we change the actress, please? Or it's just a bad directing :P

[+] For the script, I'd say I would blame Sofia Coppola for writing the script. She made the scripts based on the book by Antonia Fraser, that was good. But it became a horror with Sofia's interpretation. Goodness.

Antoinette would not speak that easy to Madame Du Barry - she wouldn't even look at her. And as a royalty, the Queen would not allow anybody lower than her status to say hi at the opera, like "Oh, hi, Queen, heard a lot about you. Nice to meet you!" - like Comtesse Du Polignac did -__-;;
Kirsten's Antoinette is just too playful and unsuit to the Queen's behavior.
I understand that the plot must be shortened for the duration, but still it's too bad for not mentioning anything about the Diamond Necklace Affair in the movie. That scandal was one of the biggest things that changed Antoinette's life in Versailles. And the part when Antoinette's second child (Louis Joseph, the Dauphin) was born and then died is too vague for audience to understand. They would like, "What? Who died?" when they watch the coffin and Antoinette's tears.

[+] One thing that totally destroyed this movie, is the music background. For Sofia Coppola, and the music director, I would ask you, are you possesed?!?
If the director wanted to make a pop-style version of a classic - maybe just like Baz Luhrman did to Romeo & Juliet (which I love it very very much), well then in this movie it just didn't work out. In fact, it was awfully fail.
I hate the back sound from this whole movie - I even had to press the mute volume button several times because it hurt my ears! What were they thinking, to put a rock'n'roll "I Want Candy" song into a classic-set of Versailles court? It's so inappropriate, very incompatible songs for a movie with classic settings and props. I would put the gun on the director's head and pull the trigger :p Sorry, I was emotionally upset :P
If I would keep the background music and the soundtracks from Romeo & Juliet like a treasure, on the contrary, I would never want to hear any songs from this Marie Antoinette movie. Why oh why.

Based on my opinion, I would rate this movie 7 out of 10. The good things that help this movie is decent to watch are the nice settings - Versailles looks pretty small, eh? But nice. Just nice. And also the whole costumes, extravagant decorations, are pretty much suitable for the storyline.
But as I stated - and also what some of my friends comments after they watched this movie at the JIFFEST - this movie is very very disappointing. As a festival movie or a blockbuster-wannabe, Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette is just a horrible plays like the cheap comedies played on the street of Paris back in 1776. They just didn't have the electric guitar roared to make it worse.

{posted by Chibi on 1:43 PM} +

The Historian

A book review

Maybe some of you are wondering why do I make such a late review about this book. LOL. Well, okay. I got this book as a requested-birthday-present from Maria & Enjol 2 years ago(thanks, girls!) That was on July XD But it seems that I never had enough time to read it all. I know I'm such a dork.

But anyway, I finally finished reading this book - the whole book. And as I expected, this book is awesome.

Keep in mind that I LOVE DRACULA. Although I hate scary things and I'm scared of horror stories, but I love vampiric things. I love googling about vampires/dracula, I love Bram Stoker's Dracula (the classic fiction and the Hollywood version - who can resist Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder and Gary Oldman in one frame!), I love the Vampire's chronicles by Anne Rice and its movies.
I even probably love making research and writing thesis about it (if only there's a relations between international politics with vampires, I would've done that for my graduate school thesis. And guess what, there is! $#!t.) Well, okay, basicly, I love anything related to blood-drinking nocturnal creatures who possesed fangs.

For those who thought that Dracula is only an imaginary creature from Bram Stoker - or whoever, well, I'd like to tell you that Dracula did exist, as a living mortal, a prince, and his stories then became legend and inspired many people to create such stories and folktales about his immortality, vampiric power and else.

In this book The Historian, the writer Elizabeth Kostova compiled the true facts, histories, and mixed them with her beautiful imagination about this historical icon, Dracula. Kostova stated some differences between the real Dracula - that was a prince from Wallachia, Rumania, his real name is Vlad Tepes, or Vlad III, and he lived in 15th century - comparing to Bram Stoker's Dracula, which said as a Prince from Transylvania (the truh is, Transylvania is sited next to Wallachia) and after his wife's death and he declared to hate God for that, he became immortal that live by drinking blood.
Well, Kostova gave the historical journals about Prince Vlad, and it stated that he died as a Christian in 1477 and his grave was said in a church of Snagov, but Kostova stirred the fact with her tricky question : Did Dracul really dead? Wasn't he actually burried in Snagov, or did he turn into an immortal just like the folktales said, by drinking blood? Dum dum dum dum dum dum ! :)

For you who loves historical stories, or thriller stories, you will adore this book. The book tells you alot of facts about Europe and Byzantium in 15th century - when the real Dracula lived. And what I love most about this book is the plot, that brought you from England to Istanbul, from America to Rumania, from Bulgaria to France. The journey was described from a historian's memoirs, and blended it with an adventure of a 16 year-old girl, with conflicts between ancient wars and European political history.
Although this book is loaded with historical facts and sites, but the stinging plots and thrilling story could keep you away from boredom. Kostova gave some Stoker's notes for some preface of her chapters, which intriguing the next thriller. Reading this book for me is as amusing as watching a thriller movie XD I admit that I sometimes closed the book because I was too scared to read it alone in my room at night, and frantically called Wo to keep me away from nightmares :P I'm a chicken, what can I say :P

But this book has the power that made me keep on read it, it seems that I can't get it off of me. Just like the other books that impressed me, The Historian made it to be one of my favorite books.
Once again, it proved that Dracula rocks!

{posted by Chibi on 1:40 PM} +

Song:'80s-'90s songs; Matt Hires; some rocks
Obsession: Publishing my book
Reading: Horrible Histories
Movie: Clueless
Addiction: Books & Mp3
Project: Reviews and Translations