Cannes

The Cannes Film Festival in France is the most important and influential film festival in the world. Or also a huge “can” that, instead of searching and determining trends, just archives other works of old masters? When this year’s edition was opened by the period drama Jeanne du Barry – The King’s Mistress, which is now playing in Czech cinemas, it was for many a glimpse into prehistoric times. Still, this can is worth opening.

The narrator’s voice welcomes the audience to images that play with natural light and classical composition. Nothing exciting, at first glance it is a rather sedate demonstration of taste. The French actress and director known as Maïwenn made a story, of which there have been many in recent times. And she cast herself in the main role a little brazenly Countess du Barrywho in the 18th century, to the shock of the Parisian nobility, became the mistress of King Louis XV.

If someone is offended that the forty-seven-year-old artist fit the role of a young seductress, they should probably stick to reading carefully sourced historical sources. On the contrary, the most remarkable thing about the picture is how much he avoids any scandalous position.

The director spared her story about the newcomer at court from a lot of tension. Most films or series on a similar topic focus on a detailed description of customs, ossified morals and complicated hierarchies to which the new “addition” must submit and deal with them.

Whether it was older historical material – such as a more popular and authorial version of Elizabeth of Bavaria’s fate in the series Empress and the film Corset – or the series Koruna about the British monarchy, the creators always focused a large part of their attention on conflicts and scheming. And for possible defiance against the “corsets” of tightly laced rules that are centuries old.

Maïwenn chose to portray Jeanne du Barry as a simple, natural woman who likes to read cheap romances. And in his film he tries to create something like a more realistic version of them. Not only because the crew had access to Versailles, where they filmed, but also in a low-key, subdued tone. It could be a story of great passion as well as great hate. At the same time, it is a drama built on small gestures.

Johnny Depp as Louis XV. | Photo: Film Europe

Madame du Barry was originally the daughter of a cook, a former prostitute, but when there was a fleeting meeting with the monarch, he invited her to him – despite her low birth and the displeasure of his daughters and other courtiers. It is quite unexpected how decently – although perhaps too confidently for some – the story of this affection is told.

Maïwenn cast Johnny Depp in the role of the king, with various question marks hanging over both of them recently. Depp is trying to make a comeback after being pulled from the fantasy series Fantastic Beasts amid various scandals and suspicions stemming from his toxic, crumbling relationship with actress Amber Heard.

Maïwenn is also no stranger to controversy in the restaurant plivla to journalists is defined against #MeToo. Even some reports from the filming of their film did not reinforce the impression that it was some idyll in Versailles. Depp allegedly went to the set late, argued with the director, the next day she did not arrive because she got angry.

At the same time, they created a film that is interesting precisely because of the unobtrusive chemistry between the two actors. Whether it is Depp’s language dispositions and the minimum of French words she utters in front of the camera, or the fulfillment of a clear author’s vision, Maïwenn captured a small bond that is not love, but not stormy passion, but rather a momentary, all the more genuine, connection.

It doesn’t matter as much as it is true. Many things, from the age of the protagonists to the depiction of the king sitting “bohemianly” in his palace without a wig and with loose hair, seem ahistorical at first glance. And especially for many French people, the monarch will seem too human.

The movie Jeanne du Barry – The King’s Mistress has been showing in cinemas since last Thursday. | Video: Film Europe

Maïwenn does not really look at the nobility with a critical eye. Her perspective is completely narrowed down to the lens of the protagonist, who was simple, naive and didn’t really understand why she was a thorn in the side of the king’s daughters. The only picture depicts them as schemers.

Although it skims over the surface in many ways, the capture of the relationship between the two lovers is one of its strengths. The film avoids explosions of passion, cutting off all erotic scenes before they start approaching. And even the suffocation at the court is not as intense as in many other works on a similar theme.

The climax of the tension in the second half of the film is the question of how Marie Antoinette, the new “juice” in Versailles, will treat Jeanne du Barry, who is reluctant to talk to her for a long time. Which is a condition for both of them to be able to get along and communicate.

Otherwise, Jeanne du Barry – The King’s Mistress is an attempt to make a simple love melodrama that avoids big historical themes, but also the big sentiment usually associated with the genre.

The heroine has a bit of a rebel and a naïve in her, her small rebellions against ceremonial habits do not act as gestures of defiance, but rather as a natural compulsion. Maïwenn already by physiognomy, namely her prominent teeth, as if she did not and could never belong to the court. Nevertheless, with her missteps she not only provokes, but at the same time also attracts the attention of the male staff in particular, without any deliberate scheming involved.

It’s a movie that doesn’t really fit today. He is not concerned with a scathingly critical look at the twilight of the nobility, he does not attempt rebellious ahistorical tricks like years ago director Sofia Coppola in Marie Antoinette or last year filmmaker Marie Kreutzer in Corset, where the strong authorial attitudes were clearly legible.

Maïwenn slips between the approaches offered, does not engage in big dramas – most of the twists and turns in the story are unexcitingly presented by the narrator’s voice.

Maïwenn as Jeanne du Barry and Johnny Depp as Louis XV. | Photo: Film Europe

Nevertheless, in the few verbal exchanges and the stay near the monarch, the author of the film is able to capture the mutuality, which is free of words like “passion”, “lust” or perhaps “love”. It is rather a kind of last moment of something working in a world that will soon end. As it sounds at one moment when Louis XV. he declares his love confession. du Barry’s response is: “You don’t love me. It excites you that you don’t know me.”

Coldness mingles with pragmatism, Versailles has rarely seemed so ordinary. As much as it is a film full of scenes that could be framed straight away, it manages to unexpectedly slip out of those frames.

Film

Jeanne du Barry – The King’s Mistress
Directed by Maïwenn
Film Europe, Czech premiere on October 5.

2023-10-09 10:55:59
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