Capo
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Post by Capo on Apr 17, 2007 23:06:17 GMT
Marie Antoinette Sofia Coppola 2005 Japan / France / USA An Austrian princess is wedded, at 15, to a French Dauphin in the hope of bringing together Versailles and Vienna. At 19 she becomes Queen of France, but trouble is brewing amongst the public. Ambitious and misunderstood, a tragic, rather quiet film about a girl entering a world completely alien to her, and becoming slowly seduced by it. Seduction is the key word - it's visually fantastic, meticulously designed, and overall irresistible. It's probably going to be remembered (if at all) as a hideously inaccurate biopic with an out-of-place soundtrack. But Coppola continues to impress, as a deceptively bold director who moves on with each film. She has a fine sense of pace, and her control of actors is brilliant; the two can be seen together most evidently when the title character is deflowered, and we cut to the birth of her first child - it might seem too pacy and convenient for some, but Dunst's facial expression lends a weight other directors would have missed (and her performance in general is another lesson in subtlety). Arresting from start to finish, and the final shot, a very brief coda, is haunting and implicit.
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