Movie: The Last Duel
The 2021 movie "The Last Duel" is based on a non-fiction book about a judicial duel in 1386 Paris, at a time when judicial duels had fallen out of favor but weren't completely stricken from the law-books yet, to resolve the accusation by Sir Jean de Carrouges that a squire, Jacques Le Gris, had raped Carrouges's wife, Marguerite.
They say every man is the hero of his own story. The writers of "The Last Duel" took that literally, together with the principle that every court case has people with conflicting views of the same events. The movie is divided into three chapters: "the truth according to Jean de Carrouges", "the truth according to Jacques Le Gris", and "the truth according to Lady Marguerite", each presenting many of the same scenes from a different perspective. Naturally, Carrouges comes off as bold, brave, principled, decent, and wronged in his own account, less so in the other two accounts; Le Gris comes off as fun-loving, decent, and wronged in his own account, less so in the other two accounts; and Marguerite comes off as three-dimensional, decent, and wronged in her own account, and less so in the other two accounts. All this is interestingly done, and well-acted (by Matt Damon as Carrouges, Ben Driver as Le Gris, and Jodie Comer as Marguerite, as well as Ben Affleck as Count Pierre, to whom both Carrouges and Le Gris are in fealty, and Alex Lawther as the childish, 18-year-old King Charles VI). And one is intended to come away with the sense that Marguerite's account, the least supported by surviving court documents because they were written by men, is probably the most accurate. Also that men are pigs -- some actively malevolent, some clueless and sexist but not actively malevolent, some employing their monopoly on law and science to devalue and discredit women, etc. And that, then even more than now, a woman charging rape will be treated as a criminal herself, and she might be better off keeping silent about it. There's a line "better a mother who's alive than a mother who's right," or something like that.
As a period piece, it's a mixed bag. There are nice touches, like the doctor examining Marguerite's urine in a blown glass urinal, and the kirtle Marguerite wears in the rape scene (at her own home, not expecting guests, so it's an appropriate thing for her to be wearing) is a front-laced Gothic Fitted Dress (tm) with set-in sleeves. I'm no armor expert, but the armor looks to me only a few decades off (aside from the half-visored helmets, which are presumably inspired by jousting helmets that offered more protection on the left side than the right but which just look wacky). And heraldry experts I know say the heraldry is appropriately used, and quite close to the historical arms of Carrouges and Le Gris respectively. But as usual in movies set in the Middle Ages, the extras are better dressed than the named characters, who wear a variety of clothing ranging from the 13th century to the 16th. In one scene Marguerite wears a leather vest/bodice thing-like, and in another she goes to court wearing what might be described as a "frontless surcote", recalling perhaps a burlesque dancer. Most of the headgear dates from between 1420-1470, not 1386, and there are occasional excursions into Tudor. Indeed, Marguerite's forbiddingly old-fashioned and strait-laced mother-in-law (who lectures her about how when you get raped, you should pick yourself up and go on with life rather than whining like a baby) seems to be wearing an Elizabethan neck-ruff, at least 200 years fashion-forward.
Combat is depicted as horrible, brutal, and "by any means necessary" dirty. Again, I'm not an expert on this stuff, but there is lance-play, sword-play, axe-play, dagger-play, and unarmed wrestling, all of which are documented in combat manuals of the time; I think I even saw a moment of half-sword thrusting, although much of the armed combat is wild hacking and blocking.
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shalmestere and I were both reminded of the 2018 movie "Ophelia", which likewise takes a story traditionally centered on its male characters (in that case "Hamlet") and re-tells it from the perspective of one of the women. Indeed, both movies have almost exactly the same closing scene, with the female protagonist playing with her toddler in a sunny field of flowers, so I have to suspect that it was an intentional quotation.
So see the movie as a sort of feminist manifesto, not as a period piece, and you'll enjoy it -- if you can stomach the rape and violence.
They say every man is the hero of his own story. The writers of "The Last Duel" took that literally, together with the principle that every court case has people with conflicting views of the same events. The movie is divided into three chapters: "the truth according to Jean de Carrouges", "the truth according to Jacques Le Gris", and "the truth according to Lady Marguerite", each presenting many of the same scenes from a different perspective. Naturally, Carrouges comes off as bold, brave, principled, decent, and wronged in his own account, less so in the other two accounts; Le Gris comes off as fun-loving, decent, and wronged in his own account, less so in the other two accounts; and Marguerite comes off as three-dimensional, decent, and wronged in her own account, and less so in the other two accounts. All this is interestingly done, and well-acted (by Matt Damon as Carrouges, Ben Driver as Le Gris, and Jodie Comer as Marguerite, as well as Ben Affleck as Count Pierre, to whom both Carrouges and Le Gris are in fealty, and Alex Lawther as the childish, 18-year-old King Charles VI). And one is intended to come away with the sense that Marguerite's account, the least supported by surviving court documents because they were written by men, is probably the most accurate. Also that men are pigs -- some actively malevolent, some clueless and sexist but not actively malevolent, some employing their monopoly on law and science to devalue and discredit women, etc. And that, then even more than now, a woman charging rape will be treated as a criminal herself, and she might be better off keeping silent about it. There's a line "better a mother who's alive than a mother who's right," or something like that.
As a period piece, it's a mixed bag. There are nice touches, like the doctor examining Marguerite's urine in a blown glass urinal, and the kirtle Marguerite wears in the rape scene (at her own home, not expecting guests, so it's an appropriate thing for her to be wearing) is a front-laced Gothic Fitted Dress (tm) with set-in sleeves. I'm no armor expert, but the armor looks to me only a few decades off (aside from the half-visored helmets, which are presumably inspired by jousting helmets that offered more protection on the left side than the right but which just look wacky). And heraldry experts I know say the heraldry is appropriately used, and quite close to the historical arms of Carrouges and Le Gris respectively. But as usual in movies set in the Middle Ages, the extras are better dressed than the named characters, who wear a variety of clothing ranging from the 13th century to the 16th. In one scene Marguerite wears a leather vest/bodice thing-like, and in another she goes to court wearing what might be described as a "frontless surcote", recalling perhaps a burlesque dancer. Most of the headgear dates from between 1420-1470, not 1386, and there are occasional excursions into Tudor. Indeed, Marguerite's forbiddingly old-fashioned and strait-laced mother-in-law (who lectures her about how when you get raped, you should pick yourself up and go on with life rather than whining like a baby) seems to be wearing an Elizabethan neck-ruff, at least 200 years fashion-forward.
Combat is depicted as horrible, brutal, and "by any means necessary" dirty. Again, I'm not an expert on this stuff, but there is lance-play, sword-play, axe-play, dagger-play, and unarmed wrestling, all of which are documented in combat manuals of the time; I think I even saw a moment of half-sword thrusting, although much of the armed combat is wild hacking and blocking.
shalmestere and I were both reminded of the 2018 movie "Ophelia", which likewise takes a story traditionally centered on its male characters (in that case "Hamlet") and re-tells it from the perspective of one of the women. Indeed, both movies have almost exactly the same closing scene, with the female protagonist playing with her toddler in a sunny field of flowers, so I have to suspect that it was an intentional quotation.So see the movie as a sort of feminist manifesto, not as a period piece, and you'll enjoy it -- if you can stomach the rape and violence.