The Last Duel

Regarding this movie, a famous French Youtuber specialized in "historic vulgarization" - read: he is not a historian and does not pretend to be, he is somebody who loves history, and always collaborates with knowledgeable people of the various fields he talks about, and he is basically a very cool dude - made an episode about the "real" story of that duel.

It only has French subtitles though but they are pretty accurate, so maybe there are tools to auto-translate those because it is very interesting (and one of his longest videos). He talks about the laws at the time, the various characters involved, what a "justice duel" was, the historical context...

One good thing the Game of Thrones TV show did was introduce lots of people to "trial by combat" so at least the premise was something people might be familiar with. A duel to decide the innocence or guilt of the accused party.

This movie is now on streaming on HBO Max, so I got around to watching it. Though I don't actually see this ever being a box office success even at the most opportune of releases, I think it was still a film worth making and watching. Comer and Affleck are the best parts of it. I also think it earned the 2.5 hour runtime.

Edited by Synchronicity on Jan 26th 2022 at 2:44:21 PM

My only complaint is that showing the rape twice was a tad bit unnecessary.

Took a while, but finally got to catch this as well. Ridley Scott's milieu is a bit of hit-and-miss for me (even the acclaimed Director's Cut of Kingdom of Heaven still leaned towards "miss") and I didn't think that a gritty historical drama with a lot of blue-grey filter slapped on would have a lot of freshness to offer, coming from him. I ended up liking it quite a lot. No one part stood out to me as particularly mind-blowing, but the whole movie just works — and sometimes, that's all that it really needs to do.

But I honestly wonder how the movie would've differed if the whole thing had been written by female writers, rather than just Marguerite's part. On the one hand, I was genuinely invested in the "Rashomon"-Style narrative. It's quite fascinating how you could see clearly how Carrouges and le Gris' actions seemed honourable from their own perspectives (and even how the latter deluded himself into believing that Marguerite wanted it) while still making it perfectly clear (even in their own respective segments) that they're both misogynistic, meat-headed dudebros who have no qualms about wrecking a woman's life for their own ego.

On the other, well, it's also a fairly straightforward story about a woman enduring the aftermath of a sexual assault, and yet over half its runtime is told from male perspectives (and the men who who traumatised her, at that). We don't really see much of Marguerite's life outside of what Carrouges and le Gris experienced, aside from her relationships with her mother-in-law and Marie and her administration of the estate (which is lowkey my favourite sequence in the movie). We don't even see her family getting involved in the trial in any way. Jodie Comer is brilliant in the part, but it does really feel like we mostly see her as a victim.

Oh, and the soundtrack is pretty cool, I guess.

If you're into historical fashion, YouTuber Bernadette Banner discussed the accuracy of the movie's costuming in one of her videos (13:53 onwards). TL;DW: some of the stuff there look like they belong more in the 16th than the 14th century, but the movie put in a lot more effort overall than yon average medieval costume drama.

Edited by eagleoftheninth on Jan 26th 2022 at 1:07:23 AM

I get the 'showing it twice was unnecessary' POV, but I felt like it was justified here. The intent was to show that Jacques's and Marguerite's memories weren't all that different; Jacques is just deluded.

I agree on all points, the "Rashomon"-Style part was a lot of fun. The best difference was their public reaffirmation of friendship and the guy who actually said it in the end being neither of them. I also enjoyed the sequence of Marguerite taking charge of the household.

It's a trade off, the "Rashomon"-Style is done so subtly that the interest in the film lies in minor changes in dialogue and tone rather than broadly theatrical differences. At the same time, the subtlety means the viewer interpretation becomes its own POV as to what happened.

For me the more interesting part of the movie was showing how Jacques had a very warped sense of women and sex because of the orgies he participated in. "Running away" is just part of the game. It doesn't justify his actions, but it's a lot more interesting than someone who always acts predatory.

I mean, a woman writer probably wouldn't bother with the Rashomon narrative in the first place.

There's little point to it in this film since Ridley says the wife is right.

Yea I usually appreciate a Rashomon-Style story, but here I feel like it would have been better served to drop it and instead flesh some other things out.

There's also the fact Rashomon is ABOUT a rape and murder.

The woman lies about as much as the men do for the same toxic masculinity reasons that the Last Duel presents as she's covering for herself.

Which gives a good reason for all three parties lying and you being left to puzzle the pieces.

So the movie didn't end up netting an Oscar nomination, but man does the premise feel oddly apropos for this year's show.

And as a bonus, Ridley Scott got the last laugh, because G.I. Jane was directed by him.