Movie Rec of the Day: La Reine Margot (France, 1994)
Yeah, I am having a slow day.
What a grim, beautiful, passionate, complicated movie this is. I think queenofthorns is a fellow fan.
The movie is based on an Alexandre Dumas novel of the same name and, oddly enough, I adore both even though the tone is rather different. This is one of the rare historical movies that does not feel mannerly or sanitized or remote. Their fingernails are dirty, the lighting is not so great when it's dark, and their hair is not modernly, anachronistically shiny. And it all feels grab-by-your-throat real. This is not the movie for people who are squeamish about violence or nudity. But for those who don't mind, it's quite a gem.
The story is set in 16th century and deals with the events surrounding St. Bartholomew's massacre when Charlex IX and Catherine de Medici organized a wholesale slaughter of the Huguenots of Paris. More specifically it's about Margot, the lovely, intelligent, promiscuous, wholly corrupted Margot. She is Charles IX's sister and someone who is married off against her will to Henri of Navarre as part of a trap for Huguenots. As an aftermath of the massacre she is in trouble as not only did she save a wounded Huguenot soldier La Mole, she also struck a tentative alliance with her new husband. The movie, just like the novel, has a very complicated plot, and is part a doomed and passionate love story (did Dumas ever write any others?) between Margot and La Mole, and part a look at the politics, machinations and twists of the French court, which comes across as a truly, horrifyingly scary place. Isabel Anjani is surreally beautiful as Margot (and she is amazing in the role) and Vincent Perez is suitably gritty and gorgeous as La Mole but the show is almost stolen from them by Daniel Auteil (one of my favorite all-time actors) playing Henri of Navarre as a wryly intelligent, compassionate, lecherous, wholly human man, Jeane-Hugues Anglade who imbues Charles IX with tortured humanity underneath the madness and Virna Lisi, playing Catherine de Medici as a monster in human shape.
Also, the movie looks gorgeous. Here is a still of Margot protecting La Mole that looks just like a painting:
Further proof behind the cut:
La Mole and Margot in the poster promo pose:
Guuuh, sexy!
I love the dirty pale colors of this scene:
Margot at the wedding:
Ready, set, go:
La Mole, desperate:
Angsty lovers:
Now with kissing:
During the massacre:
At the inn:
Preparing for the wedding night:
Trying to convince backers to support a coup:
Margot and La Duchesse de Nevers:
The beautiful black and white shot:
Anjou (future Henri III):
Naked:
Cocconas and La Mole:
More of the poster pose:
What a grim, beautiful, passionate, complicated movie this is. I think queenofthorns is a fellow fan.
The movie is based on an Alexandre Dumas novel of the same name and, oddly enough, I adore both even though the tone is rather different. This is one of the rare historical movies that does not feel mannerly or sanitized or remote. Their fingernails are dirty, the lighting is not so great when it's dark, and their hair is not modernly, anachronistically shiny. And it all feels grab-by-your-throat real. This is not the movie for people who are squeamish about violence or nudity. But for those who don't mind, it's quite a gem.
The story is set in 16th century and deals with the events surrounding St. Bartholomew's massacre when Charlex IX and Catherine de Medici organized a wholesale slaughter of the Huguenots of Paris. More specifically it's about Margot, the lovely, intelligent, promiscuous, wholly corrupted Margot. She is Charles IX's sister and someone who is married off against her will to Henri of Navarre as part of a trap for Huguenots. As an aftermath of the massacre she is in trouble as not only did she save a wounded Huguenot soldier La Mole, she also struck a tentative alliance with her new husband. The movie, just like the novel, has a very complicated plot, and is part a doomed and passionate love story (did Dumas ever write any others?) between Margot and La Mole, and part a look at the politics, machinations and twists of the French court, which comes across as a truly, horrifyingly scary place. Isabel Anjani is surreally beautiful as Margot (and she is amazing in the role) and Vincent Perez is suitably gritty and gorgeous as La Mole but the show is almost stolen from them by Daniel Auteil (one of my favorite all-time actors) playing Henri of Navarre as a wryly intelligent, compassionate, lecherous, wholly human man, Jeane-Hugues Anglade who imbues Charles IX with tortured humanity underneath the madness and Virna Lisi, playing Catherine de Medici as a monster in human shape.
Also, the movie looks gorgeous. Here is a still of Margot protecting La Mole that looks just like a painting:
Further proof behind the cut:
La Mole and Margot in the poster promo pose:
Guuuh, sexy!
I love the dirty pale colors of this scene:
Margot at the wedding:
Ready, set, go:
La Mole, desperate:
Angsty lovers:
Now with kissing:
During the massacre:
At the inn:
Preparing for the wedding night:
Trying to convince backers to support a coup:
Margot and La Duchesse de Nevers:
The beautiful black and white shot:
Anjou (future Henri III):
Naked:
Cocconas and La Mole:
More of the poster pose: