Marie Antoinette

Saw Marie Antionette last night - my latest DVD from Amazon rental. ( I keep thinking that it's too good to last - how can any service that is so efficient, and offers such a cornucopia of goodies possibly survive?). Anyway, I enjoyed it very much. It's a good length, under 2 hours, so doesn't outstay its welcome. (Anything over really needs to be able to justify its length). Sofia Coppola intrigues me; all 3 of her films so far (Virgin Suicides, Lost in Translation are the others) have a precise, lucid quality that I find distinctive, and very attractive. Her privileged status as the scion of one of Hollywood's A-list is evident all over the film; the celebrity cameos (Marianne Faithfull the most notable, looking wonderfully-un-Botoxed or face-lifted) and the presence of substantial acting talent such as Rip Torn, Judy Davis and Shirley Henderson in supporting roles, and Steve Coogan giving an unexpectedly unselfish performance as Marie's adviser all give the film lustre, sheen and substance.
Coppola's background in music video production is very evident, and there are times when the film seems like a collection of them, strung together with short linking sequences which have just enough dialogue necessary to maintain narrative flow.
It's beautifully-realised visually; filmed at Versailles, it's an almost-perfect recreation of Louis XVI's court. Some sequences are reminiscent of Kubrick's Barry Lyndon, a favourite of mine; the camera holding on to the scene and staying with it, luxuriating in the look of it. Another similarity is its preoccupation with the strangeness of the past - it really was another country, and they really did do things differently.
As far as the script is concerned, Coppola plays fast and loose with period authenticity, dispensing with it altogether at times. Marie Antoinette and her female companions at times talk like a bunch of Valley girls, but somehow it doesn't matter. Period authenticity is an over-valued concept - looking right, or at least looking convincing is what matters, and MA and her friends may well have talked like the French 18th-century equivalent of Valley girls.
Coppola builds the narrative with layers of scenes with little or no dialogue, snatched fragments of conversation and music, an eclectic collection of 18th-century period recreations, , some ambient tracks, and 21st-century rock-punk songs which I can't pretend to be able to identify. It all falls apart a bit towards the end - somehow its concern with style over substance can't quite encompass the French Revolution, or MA's death at the hands of the guillotine. There's a headlong rush through the birth of 2 children, 'let them eat cake' and the family's flight from the revolutionary rabble. But it remains an extraordinarily accomplished work and Coppola's sensibility towards the film-making process promises much. She really is a major talent.