Sofia Coppola gets the quiet moments right...

Rating: 10/10 (20 October 2006)

This isn't your mother's period-piece...
I fell head over heels for this playful film within the first fifteen minutes. "Marie-Antoinette" follows in the tradition of Coppola's earlier efforts, delicately balancing femininity and loneliness in a world that feels awkward and shallow. If you adored the sensibilities of the 2003 masterpiece, "Lost in Translation", this film will strike many familiar notes.
There are certain scenes in certain films that make you aware you are in the presence of greatness. I had that feeling when "Amelie" skipped stones on the canal. I had that feeling when Lucius and Ivy spoke quietly on the porch in "The Village". I had that feeling when Elizabeth Bennett spun on her swing in "Pride & Prejudice". I had that feeling when Bill Murray told us that, "For relaxing times... Make it Suntory time!"
In this film, I knew I was watching something special when Antoine is making her way from Austria to France to meet her fiancé, the Dauphin -- heir to the French throne. In any typical period piece, the journey would have been brief, showing us her departure, a scenic middle shot to pass the time, and her arrival. However, in "Marie-Antoinette", we are transported into her world. We are invited to share her quiet times. This journey reveals her youth and the boredom, nervousness and excitement that comes along with it.
She arrives at the border to complete the transfer, as if she were a legal document. She is asked to strip and to bid adieu to her family, friends and pets. She is inspected and remade into the Dauphine of France, wholly unprepared for what lays ahead.
Director, Sofia Coppola, is so attune to the complexities of young womanhood. Every film she has done explores the subject with such depth and care. I am not sure there has ever been a director, an overwhelmingly male occupation over the years, who has been able to capture those feelings on film with such clarity and wistfulness.
Kirsten Dunst has never been one of my favorites. I have found her to be a charming and capable actress up to this point, but she has never blown me away. That is no longer true. Her portrayal is simultaneously exuberant and restrained, spontaneous and thoughtful, grateful and disappointed, blissful and tinged with regret.
She plays the role with the freedom of a child -- and let's face it, Marie-Antoinette is exactly that. That she partakes in extravagant parties, shopping sprees, gambling entertainment & decadent feasts is only to be expected. She is a teenager trying to have fun in a stuffy world of structure and tradition, which she clearly describes as "ridiculous". "But that, my dear", replies one of her assistants, "is Versailles."
She is also pressured with trying to provide France an heir to the throne -- a task she finds difficult with such an aloof Dauphin (Schwartzman), who is more interested in hunting and key-making than in her porcelain assets.
Everything about this film focuses on her insulated world, which stifles her natural energy, and her attempts to make it bearable -- perhaps even, dare she say it, a little fun.
What Coppola does so masterfully here is to style this story in such a way, with lavish visuals and a mélange of music, that it feels like a "young" film. She blends music of the time with contemporary tunes. She is unencumbered by the formal nature usually assigned to period pieces, shifting from the formality of Kubrick's "Barry Lyndon" to the patience of Terrence Malick's "The Thin Red Line" to the free-flowing movement of Robert Altman's and Paul Thomas Anderson's steadicam. She doesn't demand uniformity with dialogue or accents. She allows the film to take on a life of its own, making it one of the most original efforts in recent memory.
Coppola uses melancholic bands like New Order, films as varied as "Amadeus" and "Badlands", and designers like Vivienne Westwood to influence every single frame of this movie. It truly is a unique vision. This extremely talented director has already established her own look and feel. I am sure I would recognize one of her movies without knowing in advance -- and there only a handful of directors who can evoke that compliment.
Throughout this film, there is a haunting thread of inevitability. We all know Marie-Antoinette's fate and the film glides to a delicate final act which avoids the predictable and gratuitous ending that some other filmmakers would have provided. Instead, we solemnly watch the final few days, as the angry civilian mob descends upon Versailles to revolt against the monarchy. We observe the farewells to friends. We are handed one final elegant meal, with a sympathetic touch of the hand... and a sorrowful goodbye from a carriage heading to the gallows.
I am so grateful to have found another film like this. I am equally grateful to have another director whose films I will eagerly anticipate above all others. "Marie-Antoinette" is assured a place near the top of my 2006 list. It is another quiet masterpiece for those of us who don't need our "cake" handed to us on a plate.
© Written by TC Candler IndependentCritics.com