Zweig's works are a masterpiece of biographical literature. He explored Marie Anoinette's heart and life tragedy through meticulous documentation. Marie's tragedy is that she has never assumed responsibility for her position. She is beautiful, simple, lively, and sincere to others, but willful, rash, and unable to concentrate. Her character seems mostly good, at least innocuous. However, the objective cruelty of life is that, in such an era and position, her mistakes are fatal and unforgivable.
The key points described by Zweig are reflected in the film, but they are not penetrated or clearly expressed. You can list them a little bit:
1. The confrontation with Mrs. Dubali. In Marie's simplicity, she may not have much distaste for Madam Dubali herself. It's just that she was born noble, and the noble ladies around her also had an influence on her, causing her to be arrogant and silent towards Mrs. Dubali, who was of humble birth. If you are a savvy person, you can clearly see that the other party is the father-in-law's favorite, so why cling to these plainly embarrassing a king. Marie's willfulness and recklessness are clearly reflected in this matter, and these are also the root causes of her life.
2. The husband's physical disorder. Zweig spent a long time studying the problems encountered by Louis XVI. In fact, it was just a minor operation, and it took quite a few years to solve it, even in the end Frederick, who later became the Kaiser, personally persuaded it. But this does have a great impact on Marie. If she can give birth earlier and enter the role of mother and family, then her adolescent play is likely to be brief. In the past few years, she has been mingling with young aristocrats, the boredom of sending her, she has not been able to concentrate on understanding her own responsibilities, and she has not been able to mature.
3. Have fun and splurge. Marie is the goddess of Rococo art. From Rococo, you can know what her favorites are. Exquisite matte, cute and playful, extremely relaxed, without a trace of pressure, let alone seriousness and thinking. If his husband is not a king, he must be a good man, loved by everyone. But like her, these two extremely mediocre people have unfortunately become the king and queen of France. Even Marie's elder brother expressed his concern for her, and even said: "The revolution will be very cruel once it comes." This lady in deficit has only scrawled one line of reviews over the years: "Please pay." She didn't even know how much money she squandered. She has acted as a peasant woman countless times, but in her life, she may not have seen a real peasant woman. In the end, she faced the trial. Regarding her overspending, she had to say that she exceeded her expectations (when she was happy and self-willed, did she really expect and think?) so that she came to the famous "necklace incident", although she was thorough. She was a victim, but all of France was against her and cursing her. She didn't wake up like a dream until this time. Unfortunately, everything is too late.
4. The relationship with Fessen. Marie's life was a failure. She is not lacking in intelligence, but she will be a fool for most of her life. When she experienced hardships in the second half of her life, she finally calmed down and began to learn and judge. It's not that she couldn't learn these things, but she never discovered them. I always think that Fessen is the best gift God gave her. She felt the true feelings from Fessen. During her most miserable time, Fessen always accompanied her and gave all the love and loyalty. Zweig used many researches to prove the relationship between the two. I think it is necessary and an important part of enriching the tragedy of this queen's life.
I'm almost writing a book review. Taking the trouble to explain these things is nothing more than explaining why Sofia portrays so many seemingly strange and incoherent plots. Sofia did not connect these key points at all, nor did they really turn these contents into visual plots. So it will cause many viewers to feel tedious and unclear.
Another problem with Sofia is that the film is overly critical. Marie's tragedy is very representative: a person's character may not have a major problem, but once he can't bear his responsibilities, it will cause extremely serious consequences. Life is pretty tough. Marie can’t forgive her mistakes just because she’s lively, cute and kind. History has never forgiven and sent her to the guillotine.
In addition, I am extremely dissatisfied with Sofia's portrayal of Marie's mother, Marie Therese, as an old lady dressed in black and full of preaching. Probably Sofia thinks she marrying her daughter is a political deal. But shouldn’t the prince of a country be responsible for the country’s internal affairs and diplomacy? Can this choice be settled by feelings? Her teachings for her daughter can be seen from the letter by no means empty talk or preaching. She even worked hard to communicate and criticize her wayward little daughter in every detail. It's just that everything is in vain.
Finally, let's talk about the original soundtrack of the film. I can understand Sofia's idea of using rock music, which is also a very good idea. Because rock is a kind of music that can express emotions. It's just exactly the same as the problem on the plot, the music of each scene is isolated. Individual music and scenes are compatible, but the music of each plot cannot be coherent as a whole, so the entire original soundtrack can never become a smooth system.
Having said so much, I will not continue. Sofia has worked hard on actors, photography, music, and costumes, but overall, it can only be said to be a failure. I called the subject of the review the tragedy in tragedy, which means that she tried her best to portray Marie's life tragedy, but it turned out to be another tragedy.
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