The film stops when Jeanne is sent to a convent after the death of the king :and however her life was not over ,by long shot , and deserved more than a bit of voiceover ;her attitude during the revolution,(she was favorable to the change,being herself from the people ) ;her flight to England ,her.careless return to Paris -to recover her jewels -,her desperate attempt to save her head by giving them all to the republic ,and her hope to get a reprieve even en route to the guillotine ;but eventually her common origins went against her for she betrayed her class.
I did not expect much from Maiwen whose movies such as "polisse" and "pardonnez-moi", are an acquired taste .But I've got to make amends ;her "Barry " ,which should have been called "La du Barry et le roi" , takes time to take off and is marred by too much of voice over in its first quarter , but hits its stride afterwards and is much more satisfying than Sofia Coppola's "Marie-Antoinette " .
Although the choice of the principals is weird but finally works, it's the supporting cast who is the most convincing: Louis the Fifteenth's daughters ,three of whom were horrible shrews -one of them ,according to certain historians ,would be responsible for "let them eat cake"( cake replaced by "croutes de pâté "( bits of pie )) falsely attributed to Marie -Antoinette -And it's a good thing to have the latter portrayed by a German actress and to let her utter "Wenn essen wir?"(when shall we eat?"). The depiction of a court in decay , under the powder ,the wigs ,the blusher and the greasepaint rings true :anyway ,since the Sun King ,the nobles were simple actors who attended the monarch's rise , Louis the Fifteenth' great -grand-father had muzzled this arrogant aristocracy who rebelled in the Fronde days.
The hatred Marie -Antoinette would feel for this riff raff dame would know no bounds ;the famous sentence "il y a bien du monde aujourd'hui à Versailles "(there's a lot of people today in V.)is heard and it's the only words the future queen would say to "the creature"! Actually all the court despised a woman who did not belong to their world ;only Louise ,the good sister,feels for her.
All in all ,not a masterpiece ,but an estimable evocation of the beginning of the end of the Ancien regime.l.
I did not expect much from Maiwen whose movies such as "polisse" and "pardonnez-moi", are an acquired taste .But I've got to make amends ;her "Barry " ,which should have been called "La du Barry et le roi" , takes time to take off and is marred by too much of voice over in its first quarter , but hits its stride afterwards and is much more satisfying than Sofia Coppola's "Marie-Antoinette " .
Although the choice of the principals is weird but finally works, it's the supporting cast who is the most convincing: Louis the Fifteenth's daughters ,three of whom were horrible shrews -one of them ,according to certain historians ,would be responsible for "let them eat cake"( cake replaced by "croutes de pâté "( bits of pie )) falsely attributed to Marie -Antoinette -And it's a good thing to have the latter portrayed by a German actress and to let her utter "Wenn essen wir?"(when shall we eat?"). The depiction of a court in decay , under the powder ,the wigs ,the blusher and the greasepaint rings true :anyway ,since the Sun King ,the nobles were simple actors who attended the monarch's rise , Louis the Fifteenth' great -grand-father had muzzled this arrogant aristocracy who rebelled in the Fronde days.
The hatred Marie -Antoinette would feel for this riff raff dame would know no bounds ;the famous sentence "il y a bien du monde aujourd'hui à Versailles "(there's a lot of people today in V.)is heard and it's the only words the future queen would say to "the creature"! Actually all the court despised a woman who did not belong to their world ;only Louise ,the good sister,feels for her.
All in all ,not a masterpiece ,but an estimable evocation of the beginning of the end of the Ancien regime.l.