Queen Margot, a view of decadent France in 1590’s
2023 — The Year of Song and Verse
“Man is certainly stark mad. He cannot make a flea, and yet he will be making gods by the dozen.”
— Michel de Montaigne, “Essays” (1580)
S. thank you for the recommendation.
I have not seen a foreign film in a long while that pleased me as much as Queen Margot with Isabelle Adjani in the title role. This is cinema. This is greatness of film. This is a film that should be seen and if you are tired of the common Hollywood movie fare then this is well worth the time.
Queen Margot is a film of seduction, violence, court intrigue and massacre. The film is not gratuitius but all the aspects of court sex, war, death, murder are graphically depicted in an organic manner that is a necessity to understand the decadence of Charles IX court. It is well worth seeing, a must see for those who would like a look at the intrigue of the age that produced Montaigne.
The movie focuses on the decadence of the courts sexual transgressions, Charles IX real hypochondria and real illnesses, his mothers use of assignation and poisons, Margot libertinism, Henry Navarre affairs, the kings brothers attempts to succeed and the blood war of religion in France often triggered by irrational intolerance. While the court is corrupt and morally decadent, they come off as human. There are loves and loyalties among the corruption. Yet no one gets away unscathed.
Queen Margot focuses on the Court intrigues of Charles IX of France. She is married reluctantly to Henry of Navarre. The marriage that is supposed to bring peace between Catholic and Protestant factions but the marriage precipitates the Saint Bartholomew Day Massacre. Oddly, Henry of Navarre is saved from carnage and converts to Catholicism. The plot is based on the complex and decadent behavior of the Court and the intrigues to try to liberate Margot and Henry by the Protestants and the Catholic court trying to eliminate him.
The film is well cast, the sets and framing are magnificent from the the first frame to the last. The realism of the massacre, the acts of decadence are well and graphically depicted. Not much is left to the imagination.
Every actor has done an exceptional in their role, Margot is not the sole focus but much of the narrative revolves around her marriage and affairs and the fact that her marriage moved from a means to peace to a bloody massacre. Margot and Henry are well cast and do exceptional things with their roles, but the entire cast in on it mark and preforms.
The movie is gorgeously shot, in rich colors of the court showing. The cast and setting are wide and it seems great location and sound stage was completed to pull of this level of mastery.
Cast
Isabelle Adjani as Margaret of Valois, “Queen Margot”
Daniel Auteuil as Henri de Bourbon, future Henry IV
