Marie Antoinette

I'm a fan of Sofia Coppola already, so I was pretty sure I'd like this movie before I even saw it. I was right. (I had the same experience with sushi too - I knew I would like it before I tried it).

There's no arguing - the movie is visually beautiful. And like other S.C. movies, there's a real stillness and quietness in the characters. There's not much dialogue - most of the action seems to be internal to the characters. I spent a lot of time imagining what the characters must be feeling or thinking. Sure, some people would say that the movie itself should spell it out for you, but the very act of thinking about the characters' internal worlds increased my empathy for the characters.

My favorite scene (not necessarily a spoiler, but you might wanna skip it until you see the movie): Marie has had two children already - we see them at their births. We learn about a third child when two workers carry in a large portrait of the Queen with her daughter, son, and a baby in a crib. Then the workers come back and carry away that portrait. Then, the workers come back carrying another portrait. As they move out of the frame, we see that it's the same portrait as before, without the baby in the crib. This scene is so well done - our characters don't even appear in that scene, but Marie's sense of loss over that child is so clearly expressed - even without words.

The movie gets slow in the middle, but it's not a fatal flaw. One point of the movie is that Marie was b-o-r-e-d and lonely and that on most days, time dragged for her like a chain around her leg. The movie doesn't get that slow for the viewer and it's worth waiting it out.

Everyone knows how this story ends - thankfully, the movie handles the ending gracefully. Of course, some people would say that in ending gracefully, it doesn't honor the actual events - that it's important to know that the Queen's excesses drove the people crazy and that the people were thirsty for blood. We get that. This is art and graceful endings are allowed.

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I'm trying something different here. Instead of just trying to write about my life, which I never get around to doing sufficiently, I'm going to try to write about art that I'm coming across. As I read, watch movies, hear music, view paintings, etc, I interact with those objects. I'll write about that - and my writing will no doubt reveal what I'm thinking and living with at the moment. I'm not trying to write like an art critic, so please don't come here looking for deep insights. But if you've read or seen or heard anything that I'm writing about and want to discuss, please do! And if you have recommendations for me, don't hold back! Maybe I'll even post more than once a quarter this way.