The historical background of the film takes place in France in the second half of the sixteenth century. At that time, France under the Valois dynasty was in the midst of the Huguenot War, and the contradictions between Catholics and Huguenots had reached an irreconcilable point. In order to end the war, the French royal family, who believed in Catholicism, decided to marry King Henry of Navarre who believed in Protestantism. The victim of this political marriage was the princess of the French royal family at that time, Marguerite de Valois. The film itself is based on the novel "Queen Margot" by Alexandre Dumas. It mainly tells about a series of events that happened inside the French royal family in the two years from when the Protestant leader Henry of Navarra went to Paris to accept the royal marriage in 1572 to when Charles IX died in 1574, when he fled back to Navarra again. A changing story.
A series of events shown in Dumas' original novel of more than 700 pages, such as the political marriage between Henry of Navarre and Margaret, the bloody massacre against the Huguenots, the murder of Henry of Wagner to save his life. The false conversion to Catholicism and the subsequent rescues, the death of Charles IX, the succession of the Duke of Anjou, the hanging of Larmor, and the escape of Navarre need to be condensed into a two-and-a-half-hour movie. Easy thing, so the director's two-year-long story in the film is like a long bloody night combined with a day of endless defections. He abandoned the details of court life and the tedious character introductions in historical dramas, and replaced the lingering love story with a direct sex plot. At the same time, in order to make the plot more storytelling, the film also added some popular rumors. For example, at the wedding, Margaret refused to give in, and she was pressed on her head to complete the wedding ceremony. Another example suggests the rumored homosexuality of the Duke of Anjou. There is also the relationship between Margot and her lover Larmor. Also because of the length of time, the originally complex character relationships in the original novel were weakened. Charlie is still the weak king, and his mother, Catherine de' Medici, is still the man behind everything. And the political struggle that Dumas exposed in detail in the original novel was finally condensed into the sentence "human beings are pitiful creatures" in the movie.
There are two points in the film that I personally find more memorable. The first is the description of the night of St. Bartholomew in the film. The director did not use chaotic and fast-switching short shots like the general film description of the killing, but used several longer long shots to describe carefully. The chaos and bloodshed of this massacre. The second is that the film depicts that Catherine de' Medici once asked Rene to divination in the head of the dead. The result of the divination is that all three of her sons will die in the end, and the throne of France will be inherited by Navarre, who will will become the new monarch of France. This result is undoubtedly absolutely unacceptable to Catherine, so she constantly designs the second and third assassination against Naval. The second time she asked Margo's maid to seduce Naval, and made poison into lipstick with the intention of poisoning Naval. However, this time it also failed, only the maid died, and Naval was rescued by Margo again. The third time she sent someone to hide in the closet, intending to assassinate Naval, but this time Naval was rescued by King Charles IX. The reason is that in the hunting activities that accompanied the king before, Navarre rescued the king Charles IX from the beast, thus winning the king's trust, so that he was able to escape. Perhaps from another perspective, goodwill in human nature finally overcomes the barriers between religions. Charles IX's massacre against the Huguenots was only a last resort for his manipulated king to prove that he was not a weak king. Catherine de' Medici's pursuit of Navarre was not so much a hatred between Catholics and Huguenots as a move to maintain the dominance of her own family.
Of course, the queen dowager was not reconciled to the failed pursuit again and again. She decided to put a poisoned book on Naval's bedside, in an attempt to make Naval poisoned to death by reading. I saw Charles IX reading the book with relish. At this moment, fate seems to have played a ruthless joke to the Queen Mother, everything seems to be destined by God. Naval is destined not to die in the pursuit of the Queen Mother again and again, and the pursuit of the Queen Mother is also destined to fail. Charles IX, the poor king, lived under the control of his mother all his life, and even his death was caused by his mother. He pressed Rene to learn that the poison was given by his mother. But how could the dignified queen mother of France become a murderer, so he decided to die with this secret. On the other hand, he knew that his mother would not let it go, so taking advantage of another hunting opportunity, he let Naval escape back to his own territory. The king eventually died, and the news of his poisoning could no longer be withheld. Larmor became a scapegoat for the queen mother to poison the king, just because the title page of the book the king read had his name on it. Margot was devastated by the death of her lover and begged the king to pardon Larmor. The king whispered the real murderer in her ear and said, "For the honor of the royal family, you must suffer the loss of a lover, just as I must die in silence." Larmor was eventually pushed to execution Taiwan, and with him was the Catholic Kirkner. The two used to hunt each other down because one was a Protestant and the other was a Catholic. Later, the two experienced many things together, and they let go of the contradictions between religions and became friends of life and death. Kirkner could have fled, but he chose to join Larmor for the cold blade's kiss. The king died, and both Larmor and Kirkena were executed. Margot finally took Larmor's head on his way to Navarre.
The movie is basically over here. After watching the movie, I had to admire director Xia Hou's profound skills. After watching the movie, I felt like reading the original novel with more than 700 pages from beginning to end, but it felt more real than the novel. Director Xia Hou adopted strong contrast and contrast in the processing of many pictures. For example, when Navarre fled back to Navarre's territory alone, the direction he went to was full of light, while behind him was gloomy, it seemed. It also hints at some kind of ending. The characters in this film are also very rich, such as the eccentric and gloomy character of Charles IX, the treacherous hypocrisy of Navarre, the vicious and resourceful Queen Catherine, the debauchery and shamelessness of the Duke of Alançon, and the loyalty and enthusiasm of Larmor. Finally, I have to mention that the three protagonists in the famous Battle of the Three Henrys that followed also had a deep relationship with Margot. Henry IV, and his early lover Henry, Duke of Guise. Queen Margot has a very important position in French history, at the center of the interweaving of various personal relationships and events, and has left a debauched and sensual image in later generations. As a historical biographical film, Queen Margot directed by Xia Hou is undoubtedly a success, not only in the grasp of historical details, but also in various aspects such as the costumes of the characters and the arrangement of the scenes. More importantly, it reflects the characters of each character just right, and restores the details of historical events very wonderfully. It is a movie worth watching.
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