Storytelling with gusto in Ridley Scott’s medieval epic
The Last Duel is a film … set in the midst of the Hundred Years War that explores the ubiquitous power of men, the frailty of justice and the strength and courage of one woman willing to stand alone in the service of truth. Based on actual events, the film … [is] about France’s last … duel between Jean de Carrouges and Jacques Le Gris, two friends turned bitter rivals. Carrouges is a respected knight known for his bravery and skill on the battlefield. Le Gris is a Norman squire whose intelligence and eloquence make him one of the most admired nobles in court. When Carrouges’ wife, Marguerite, is viciously assaulted by Le Gris, a charge he denies, she refuses to stay silent, stepping forward to accuse her attacker, an act of bravery and defiance that puts her life in jeopardy [danger]. The ensuing trial by combat, a grueling duel to the death, places the fate of all three in God’s hands. (www.rottentomatoes.com)
This film is not the ‘cloak and dagger’ story you expect, that’s a fact. Indeed, the elements of the genre are traditional: power, possession, chivalry on the one hand and love, rape, betrayal, revenge on the other, all this caused by the never ageing love triangle which makes friends turn into foes (hence the motto three is a crowd). What is not traditional in this movie is the storytelling and the psychology of the characters.
Not surprisingly, the movie begins at the climax (the duel) and is narrated in flashback. But this is a three-time-told tale: the same events are narrated three times by the three main characters’ different points of view, approaches and attitudes (the husband, the rapier, the abused wife): it’s up to the viewer to make up his own truth. This narrative technique reminded me of A. Christie’s Five Little Pigs and W. Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury in which the same procedure is used.
As a direct consequence, the film portrays ’round characters’, not flat heroes and villains, the latter destined to die in the final fight. There’s good and bad, nobility and cowardice in each of them, like in real life. The film investigates their psychology and makes it difficult to say who is the hero and who is the bad guy. Carrouges, destined to be the champion who revenges his abused wife, has many negative aspects because of his blind faith in the given rules and in the status quo. Le Gris, destined to be the villain, is a charming fellow, literate and sensible, truly in love with a passion he can’t control. Easy to see that the real heroine here is Marguerite, an ante litteram feminist, risking her life to break the medieval codes of behaviour, with an interior struggle to cope with her fascination for the attractive Le Gris.
A final word about ‘oldie but goldie’ director R. Scott. His locations and film visuals are superb, as usual in his work (remember Blade Runner?). He makes us feel the blind violence of the Middle Ages, in battle and at home. It is a medieval epic indeed, but with clear reference to the present; as the title of the New Yorker review says, The Last Duel “is a wannabe #MeToo movie.” (379 words)
(#Me Too movement: a social movement against sexual abuse and sexual harassment where people publicize allegations of sex crimes.)
Follow up: https://www.mymovies.it/film/2021/the-last-duel/