the last duel

 

ridley scott exhibited much grumpiness at the lack of attendance for his film the last duel, blaming it on, amongst other things, millenials with short attention spans. which at least gives us the tone to set any criticism of the film. my own grumpiness with it started with the styling, about which eleanor wilkinson-keys, is far better qualified than me to pick out. that said, i didn't spot a tapestry in the whole thing, the floors were bare stone and the bright colours you'd expect were muted for scott's colout palette. nor was the music much better. so alienating enthusiasts from the get go.

as for the film itself it diverts weirdly from the source material. i'm sure eric jager, who wrote the book upon which this is based,  got a tidy lump sum but i can't imagine him being not a little irked by what they didn't include, or just plain changed. it's an odd thing, but although damon and affleck had the 'female' story written by nicole holfcener, given that the film is ostensibly about the rape of that character it's this section that jars the most. not only do they miss out chunks of exposition that the male characters get, the world building slides almost out of sight in order for scenes to be interpreted almost wholly thru a modern lens. there's almost nothing that suggests what, to our eyes, a culture very alien to our modern sensibilities. the religious aspect isn't discussed at all and the normative roles in noble marriage of the time is absent purely from its lack. treatment of the rape itself also seems disingenuous. in the book, from marguerite's testimony, there's absolutely no room for any ambiguity about what happened to her. in the film much less so, preferring a he said/she said structure that, for me, diminishes the violence of the act and undermines the 'message' which, in the final third, is so clumsily and leadenly delivered.

that said, allowing for the gaping errors in rendering, the inaccurate music and the wayward transfer from book to screen, it's not that bad a watch of a dark, rainy evening, tho kingdom of heaven and even robin hood is better. the final fight scene could be better, and is grumpy making for anyone who's done armoured up combat, but not unentertaining. and ben affleck seems to realise more than the rest what he's up to and hams it up bug style at every opportunity.

if you want a better medieval film, watch the king on netflix.

as addendum here's this, which includes criticism of the king. it's also interesting to skip forward to see what she has to say about the last duel. to give her the benefit of the doubt she doesn't appear to know what she's watching, or she'd realise that this particular duel, and the particulars about exactly how and why it was fought, is well documented. she's funny tho. but braveheart 7/10!!? come one! lol