Thoughts on Marie Antoinette

Rating: 7/10 (24 October 2006)

(View this review and others by me at http://yalldontevenknow.typepad.com)
Saw Marie Antoinette today. Theatre was packed with twenty-something hipster types all excited to see Sophia Coppola's latest style-over-substance flight of fancy. I have to say, though I enjoyed both films, I actually preferred Marie to Lost in Translation, simply because I think the latter is every bit as simple as the former, but the former is more comfortable with its simplicity (And for the purposes of this review, simplicity isn't a bad thing.) As I was walking out of the theatre after the show, I heard one hipster girl say to another, "That was the dumbest movie I've ever seen," which I think was unfair. Lost in Translation was not actually that smart, if you think about it. It was well written, and emotionally sincere, and incredibly stylish, but its central ideas--that modern culture can be alienating, that ambition and success are often contrary to happiness--are actually fairly simple, and for people who enjoy movies that express brand new ideas, kinda dumb. But the intelligence in Coppola's films is in the way they articulate a particular feeling. Could a book, or a play, convey the actual feeling of alienation and emotional stagnation in quite the same way as these films?
Marie Antoinette's central idea, I believe, is that it is as absurd for a modern post-Populist audience to condemn the real Marie for behaving as she did as it is for the same audience to blame a person for remaining in a cycle of poverty. Both have few if any models for another way to live, and thousands of forces keeping them where they are. The movie captures the intrusive, oppressive reality of Versailles life, where it is next to impossible to be alone, and where protocol stands in the way of meaningful interpersonal relationships. It also, more than any other movie about disaffected rich people, successfully shows how having anything you could ever want can get very boring very quickly. Dresses are pretty, pastries are tasty, champagne flows and certainly lightens moods, but because they don't have any real adversity to rub up against, people have next to nothing to talk about. That the film is less than half dialogue--its most critically assailed aspect--is Coppola making us feel the utter emptiness of Marie's life at court. Watching this boredom on screen can and does make you feel bored at times, but it only helps us empathize with Marie, which seems to be Coppola's singular aim.
Sophia Coppola, I think, has very interesting things to say about style in both Lost in Translation and Marie Antoinette. Both of these movies take advantage of visually stunning settings--modern-day Tokyo, and 18th century Versailles--and both delight the viewer with some of the most gorgeous imagery ever committed to film. But both show the coldness of style when there is no substance below it, and the inhumanity that disconnect engenders. Contrary to what Marie's detractors say, this theme seems to me to be enough to make an entire movie. It was enough for me--who is essentially living paycheck to paycheck in New York--to have visual proof of the dusty chestnut "Money doesn't buy happiness" that wasn't didactic or condescending, but emotionally true.
I just wish Kirsten Dunst were a bit more talented as an actress.
(View this review and others by me at http://yalldontevenknow.typepad.com)