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Farewell My Queen REVIEWED BY JONATHAN ROMNEY
Often regarded with critical suspicion (especially when it comes to festival opening films), the genre of historical drama gets an honourable dust-down with Farewell My Queen (Les Adieux a la Reine), an Upstairs Downstairs-style story of Versailles in the days of the French Revolution — in other words, the picture of a magnificent but rot-riddled vessel about to go down like the Titanic. Among French auteurs, Benoit Jacquot has a
somewhat nebulous profile, largely because of his hyper-versatility, but he is likely to score a modest success with this elegantly mounted yet dramati- cally austere drama, a considerably more elaborate piece than his last period venture, 2009’s Deep In The Woods. The film should score with upmarket audi-
ences, partly for its evocation of a key historical moment, tinged with elements of Sapphic love tri- angle and splashes of painterly nudity; partly because it has an irresistible, intelligent lead in Léa Seydoux whose rise (both in France and in Holly- wood product such as Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol) is proving relentless. Dramatic unevenness and an occasionally stolid
feel will limit box office, but at festivals and within a mature niche, the film should be eminently exportable. The drama, set over several days, begins with
the caption ‘July 14th 1789’, which in historical terms is equivalent to telling us it is 9/11, an hour
n 14 Screen International at the Berlinale February 10, 2012 COMPETITION
Fr-Sp. 2012. 100mins Director Benoit Jacquot Production companies GMT Productions, Les Films du Lendemain, Morena Films, France3 Cinema, Euro Media, Invest Image International sales Elle Driver,
www.elledriver.fr Producers Jean-Pierre Guérin, Kristina Larsen, Pedro Uriol Executive producer Christophe Valette Screenplay Gilles Taurand, Benoit Jacquot, based on the novel by Chantal Thomas Cinematography Romain Winding Editor Luc Barnier Music Bruno Coulais Main cast Diane Kruger, Léa Seydoux, Virginie Ledoyen, Xavier Beauvois, Noémie Lvovsky, Michel Robin, Julie-Marie Parmentier
or two before the planes hit. Sidonie Laborde (Sey- doux) is a member of the household at Versailles, a lowly but trusted reader to the Queen, Marie Anto- inette (Kruger). Sidonie’s devotion to the Queen knows no
bounds, and there is a definite erotic tremor between them — but Her Majesty’s real passion is for her favourite Gabrielle de Polignac (Ledoyen), as much hated in the court as an opportunist as she is by the people. July 14 is a calm day at Ver- sailles, but come evening, dark rumours trouble this sealed, vulnerable realm whose splendour is built, literally, on a swamp (hence the prominent background croaking of frogs). While aristos, many of them decrepit, fret in the
decidedly ungilded corridors below stairs, Sidonie learns the Bastille has been stormed. Knowingly awaiting catastrophe, she seizes the moment to have an abortive clinch with a handsome young gondolier (Vladimir Consigny), while being con- stantly summoned to cater to the latest whim of the mercurial Queen — for whom respect around the palace is rapidly dwindling. As nobles begin to flee, and the palace at night
begins to resemble a haunted house, the com- posed Sidonie manages to keep her head while all around lose theirs — as they soon must, literally, with the revolutionaries’ newly published decapi- tation hitlist causing further panic. It is when the film takes us backstage from the
public drama that it is most effective, Romain Winding’s superb photography making the most
of candle and fire-lit chiaroscuro, and playing silk and satin luxury against the drab severity of Ver- sailles’ stoneworks (the film is shot partly in the real palace). Adapted from Chantal Thomas’ novel, the film
makes the most of the traditional device of show- ing us world events from the perspective of a sec- ond-string bit player, and Seydoux makes an affecting representative of ordinariness, as do other French stalwarts including Julie-Marie Par- mentier, Lolita Chammah and Noémie Lvovsky as Sidonie’s superior (her presence bringing curious echoes of that other recent French drama of a dying closed world, House Of Tolerance). The drama tends to slacken considerably,
though, when it shifts into something more closely resembling conventional costume mode and — solidly affecting though her performance is — Diane Kruger’s troubled Queen is too routinely theatrical a grande dame to really engage. This is a solid, sometimes provocative piece,
though substantially more old school than the knowingly hip revisionism of Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette. Still, intelligently crafted and laudably serious as it is, the film should also bene- fit from contemporary resonances — what could be more timely in the recession era than the pic- ture of a gilded, pampered elite provoking the wrath of the public?
SCREEN SCORE ★★★
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