The 52: Farewell, My Queen
From June 2023 to June 2024 I'll be watching a lgbtqia+ film each week and coming back here with my thoughts, feelings and plenty of hopes we aren't met with the "kill your gays" trope. I call this The 52.
Woooo hoo. This was a strange one!
I think you could quantify a lot of this film by just one word: passion. There is such a grand scale of emotion and feeling and desire, want and need and turbulent love, and setting that against the backdrop of the French Revolution, in the court of Marie Antionette, is a choice that adds urgency, although perhaps less than you might anticipate.
I’m not the greatest authority on Marie Antionette or the French Revolution, admittedly, and this being a film set in the final days before Marie's death, and seen from the perspective of her royal reader, Sidonie, you’re obviously not going to get the whole, accurate, unbiased story, but I'm not convinced you really need to know what's going on because we see everything through the eyes of a young woman who, admist the uncertainty and tumult of those days, didn't understand what was happening either. The focus here is the confusion, the blithe wants and the passive emotion of the Queen while her world literally falls around her feet. All Marie Antionette wants? An embroidery and for her crush to hang out with her.
It is truly gorgeous, the costuming and the set, and I enjoyed (albeit was surprised by) the subtlety of the romance, a true exploration of feeling more than anything else. We see Sidonie’s jealousies, Marie’s emotion, Gabrielle’s manipulation, all quiet and subdued, comparatively. However, there is a scene where Sidonie has just heard the Queen speak about her love for Gabrielle in the most touching terms, and 30 seconds later we watch as she veritably stomps through the empty castle to do her Queen's bidding - visually a hilarious, jarring sight.
Would I watch Farewell, My Queen again? No.
Did I love it? No.
But was it, admittedly, quite beautiful? Absolutely.
Fun fact: I spent the whole film thinking “wow, Dianne Kruger really is gorgeous” only to go “wait, this isn’t Dianne Kruger!”
It was Dianne Kruger.
Another fun fact: I knew I recognised the actor playing Gabrielle Polignac, but couldn’t work out why until I looked her up. She’s from 8 Femmes, one of my favourite films (it’s queer, but not the ~best~ representation without stereotype) where she plays a young girl trying to solve the murder of her papa through song and dance.
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