Coppola's 'Marie Antoinette' is a tale of extravagance

Coppola's 'Marie Antoinette' is a tale of extravagance
Fascination with history is hard to overcome. And for Hollywood, the search for heroes and heroines is a never ending one. Sofia Coppola delved into history for her latest heroine and came up with Marie Antoinette, the queen of 18th century France known for her extravagances and eventful life, which Coppola edifies on 'Marie Antoinette'.

Playing Marie Antoinette is Spiderman actress Kirsten Dunst, who with an exaggerated coiffure slips into the role of the queen with relative ease. Jason Schwartzmann plays King Louis XVI, Marie's husband, while Asia Argento is Madame du Barry, the mistress of Rip Torn's Louis XV, and Marianne Faithfull is Empress Maria Theresa, Marie's mother. With access to the Palace of Versailles, Coppola has created evocative scenes and blended art and history with modern day fashion.

Based on Lady Antonia Fraser's biography Marie Antoinette: The Journey, the film tracks the travails of the queen from the time she was a 14-year-old Archduchess of Austria. The young girl is sent to France to marry a young Louis XVI. After a series of events and life under the public eye, Marie Antoinette is faced with the French Revolution. She was later executed by a guillotine but Coppola's film steers clear of the tragedy of Marie's life, ending with the fall of Versailles.

For 24-year-old Dunst, who herself rose to fame at a very young age, it was easy to identify with the green aristocrat who was forced to grow up fast and live under the public eye. “I can understand that feeling of isolation and the difficulties of trying to find your identity with all those different pressures on you. Like when you go somewhere and people know who you are immediately, so they treat you differently. That can mess with your head,” Dunst said, but admitted life must have been much tougher for the queen, who did not have a moment to herself. “I can't imagine being put in the position Marie Antoinette was in. I agree there may be some similarities, but we're dealing with a much higher position. I'm an actress, not a queen. It's not like I'm greeted with people in my bedroom every morning,” she said.

As for Coppola, the film is not as much about history as it is about the relevance of the story to modern times. And her Marie isn't the woman who kept her courage when she was faced with isolation from her children, the death of her beloved husband and ultimately, a public death. She's the woman who shops incessantly, is a fashion icon, and is basically selfish and vain. After all, she's just a child that's growing up.

Using modern day tunes as backdrop to old world parties and scenes is actually a mismatch, but not when the one doing this mixing is Coppola. It may be an old world, but it mirrors the world of today. One area where Marie Antoinette scores is the depiction of the French court's customs. In most historical epics, such customs are audience friendly.

But Coppola sticks to the real 18th century France, sending out ladies-in-waiting for Marie to dress, eating her meals in a highly public setting, where every course is announced and prolonged to make a spectacle out of something as simple as lunch. The divide between life as a commoner and life as a royal is well exhibited here as is a young Marie's need to break out of the monotony and do her own thing.

Coppola also focuses on King Louis XVI's lack of interest in sex, something that might have made Marie turn to other extravagances to fill the void and to the alleged affair with Count Axel von Fersen, played by Jamie Dornan. But the director doesn't go deep into this connection.

The film is a visual treat, but falls short of being a historical journey. Nevertheless, it holds underlying messages, which takes some amount of depth to understand.