By snoadmin
A table filled with creamy desserts, crowned with frosted whip cream, dusted with pink, yellow and green pastel sprinkles sounds enticing, smells delectable and looks tongue-tantalizingly good, but just one bite can turn even the healthiest tooth sour.
The Oct. 20 Columbia Pictures release of “Marie Antoinette” may have left audience’s eyes with more than just a picturesque image of France’s 18th century legendary teenage queen Marie Antoinette, but possibly a cavity from the elaborately beautiful costumes and set designs leaked into an empty dialogued, directionless film.
Sofia Coppola, writer and director with her third feature film “Marie Antoinette,” attempted to retell the story of an Austrian-born princess, played by Kirsten Dunst, placed into the Versailles French Royal court at the shy age of 14 only to be beset into a world of tightly-wound decorum with a husband, Louis XVI, played by Jason Schwartzman, whose indifference leads to a seven year unconsummated marriage.
“Everything we did is based on research about the period, but it’s all seen in a contemporary way,” says Coppola. “My biggest fear was making a ‘Masterpiece Theatre’ kind of movie. I didn’t want to make a dry, historical period movie with the distant, cold tableau of shots. It was very important to me to tell the story in my own way.”
Every shot in the film is detailed with fine precision, from the costumes to the makeup. From Marie Antoinette’s bed chambers to the actual cathedral where she was married, Coppola was granted permission by the French government to film in the Palace of Versailles.
The meticulous shots of the film were able to capture the vast exquisiteness of the castle with more than 700 rooms, 2,000 windows, 1,250 fireplaces, 67 staircases and fountains, statues and formal guarding enclosed in 1,800 acres of land.
Audiences are guaranteed to get lost in the film if they do not know the history and story of Marie Antoinette. The film teeters between lavish parties that seem to be people playing dress up and little to no dialogue interactions between the characters.
Kirsten Dunst’s lack of facial expressions did not make up for the many silent scenes in the film nor did it aid in her characters development from the age of 14 to 18.
Jason Schwartzman comes off awkward and timid at the beginning as a young prince but never makes the transition to being strong and mighty as a king making his performance underdeveloped and not a match for the regal costumes.
If you are interested in set design, fashion design, cinematography or you just never made it over to the Versailles castle on your visit to France, then this overstretched film may be your chance to experience it.
Historically, the commoner people of France were becoming more impoverished due to Marie Antoinette’s and King Louis XVI extravagant lifestyle, which than led to their beheadings.
If you find yourself, as I did, saying in your head, “Off with her head already,” during the first half hour of the film, it’s best you leave because it doesn’t get any better than that. This film is another example of how more is sometimes less.
