good film

Rating: 8/10 (27 September 2007)

I believe that this film is a great representation of Marie Antoinette as character. The film starts by showing her innocence and childish youth even though Kirsten Dunst looks a bit older than 14, for the first part of the film. Throughout she plays a marvellous character as she resembles the beauty and charm that Marie Antoinette had.
The director also uses colour in a dazzling way, show the progression in stages in the life of Marie Antoinette, the same goes for the music. In the beginning more bright and luminous colours are used, to give you an idea about her struggle to fit into a new type of society as she gets used to the life at Versailles.
At the same time as she calms down, lighter softer colours were used establishing her as an understanding character, as she also accepts her fate. Near the end of the film, where her life is thrown into turmoil and despair, black is used along with heavy music to signify the heaviness in temperament and character.
The film illustrates Marie Antoinette's life as it gives an idea how she might have perceived it. How she experienced her role as queen and the Versailles society. Even though it is a historical story, I feel that her life is a good example of classical tragedy, where the protagonist brings down their own fall through their own tragic flaws. In her case it is her extravagant life style even though the cause of this is her, unhappiness being in an fruitless marriage and her ominous life at Versailles. The director tries to explain all these aspects in the film.
The film also tries to show the outrageous ways in which the French Aristocrats reveled. This is done by showing the extravagant events and, by the use of brilliant dialogue.
The film is a good depiction of the life and times of Marie Antoinette, even though there are some minor mistakes in the film.