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queen margot la reine margot | Year: 1994 Classification: Foreign Film - Japanese Directed: - Patrice Chéreau Actors/Actresses: - Isabelle Adjani - Daniel Auteuil - Jean-Hugues Anglade - Vincent Perez - Virna Lisi history with healthy doses of lust, intrigue, & brutality From a story by Alexander Dumas, the famous nineteenth century Afro-French writer (Count of Monte Cristo, Man in the Iron Mask, Three Musketeers, etc). I actually came upon this film only because it had Jean-Hughes Anglade from Nikita and Killing Zoe. He is wonderful but the real scene stealer is Isabelle Adjani! You would never have noticed that she was well over 38 years old when then film was made, she looks so much better than she did 16 years earlier in Herzog's Nosferatu remake. Adjani is absolutely captivating, she has a screen presence that can only be compared to the likes of Ingrid Bergman or Gong Li. If you really like her, check out Camille Claudel which is probably her only other really good film. La Reine Margot is a luscious political adventure set around the event of the terrible true-to-life St. Bartholomew's Day massacre of 1572. The supporting cast, including Anglade as Charles IX, and Vincent Perez as Adjani's lover La Mole, is consistently superb. If you haven't seen this, you are definitely missing out. La Reine Margot probably helped to influence the similar medieval themed queen epics Elizabeth (1998, UK) and Suriyothai (2001, Thailand), both of which should definitely be checked out if you enjoyed this one. One of the best films of the 1990s. Fabulous historical fiction...... Isabel Adjani (Camile Claudel) and Vincent Perez (Swept From the Sea, Indochine) star as lovers in this film set in the time of Henri IV of France (mid-late 16th Century). If you don't like the sight of blood, you may want to avoid the film--the St Bartholmew's Day massacre (Aug. 24) is a big event--but if you love history--especially European history--especially French history--this film will prove interesting. Queen Margot (Adjani) was a real person who was forced to marry the Spanish prince who became Henri IV (Daniel Auteil). Henri was from the Bourbon branch of the French family and on the day of his marriage to Margot, he converted to Catholicism. It was he who said, "Paris is worth a Mass." Margot did not love Henri, and eventually he divorced her for her wanton ways and married Marie who is well remembered as his wife and widow and a co-ruler of France. While she was married to Henri, Margot is reputed to have been involved with many men. This story is a tale of the times from her perspective and reveals her affair with an ordinary soldier who happened to be in Paris the day Protestant Huguenots were massacred, and whom she saved from a vicious mob--according to this part of the story which may be fictionalize to some extent. This is a passionate film, and years later memory bubbles of some of the more dramtic scenes pop into my mind. I am happy to see it out on DVD at last. A beautiful film done a huge disservice Queen Margot is one of the more beautiful french films you are likely to see - right up there with Tous Les Matins du Monde and La Belle Noiseuse. The story is well executed, the direction excellent, the acting top notch, the actors all exquisitely beautiful, the art departments are spectacular and the lighting and cinematography are outstanding. So why on earth did Miramax decide to put out such a horribly bad DVD transfer of this glorious film? From the opening credits, the amount of digital artifacting in the blacks is horrific - the frames literally freeze when there is no movement on screen - the audio is hollow and without depth - and picture detailing is washed out. Now, you will likely get used to these appalling bad choices on the part of the distribution company who decided to save a few bucks on a decent DVD encoding and still get wrapped up in the stunningly beautiful Isabelle Adajani (who was over 40 at the time of this film's lensing!) and the truly compelling storytelling going on in this film. However, it's just such a disappointment to see a company reknown for it's sensitivity to the "art film" genre make such a crassly ignorant decision as this one. Let's all hope that Criterion decides to honor this truly deserving film with a DVD transfer worthy of it's filmmakers. 5 stars for the film and 0 stars for the DVD itself = 3 stars overall - worth renting for those who haven't seen it, worth owning for those of us who love it and for those who can live without, wait until a proper DVD is put out! Buy Queen Margot La Reine Margot at Amazon.com Buy posters at Allposters.com Jamster - the latest ringtones for your phone!  Search with Walhello on the Internet on Queen Margot La Reine Margot Search with the Priority Search Engine on Queen Margot La Reine Margot This page in other languages: Suomeksi | Nederlands | Deutsch
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