One of the elements I appreciated in The Last Duel was the spot-on cultural elements, even to the discussion of popular literature between Marguerite and Le Gris: he asks if she likes La Roman de la Rose, a satirical allegory that purports to be about courtly love but is really about seduction and rape, and she answers that she favors Parsifal, which is about a morally-pure knight seeking the Holy Grail. The exchange illustrates their cultural differences. Le Gris misses her point. He honestly believes that his rape of her is appropriate because he followed the rule book and she's nothing but an object of his desire. Additionally, the discussion depicts Le Gris as the nouveau-courtier he is -- too unpolished to recognize the difference between metaphor and real behavior.
My two cents: one underestimated reason I think this film failed at the box office (and one I heard a lot of at the time and was written about by some female critics) is that many people, women especially, didn't want to watch a film about sexual violence (or at least the possibility that sexual violence occurred). We deal with the potential of violence being directed against us every day: why would we want to watch 2+ hours of it from a director whose films have a *really* lousy track record on these sorts of issues? I know that was my feeling as I read the plot summaries, and it still is. Hard pass. Might listen to this, though. Cheers.
One of the elements I appreciated in The Last Duel was the spot-on cultural elements, even to the discussion of popular literature between Marguerite and Le Gris: he asks if she likes La Roman de la Rose, a satirical allegory that purports to be about courtly love but is really about seduction and rape, and she answers that she favors Parsifal, which is about a morally-pure knight seeking the Holy Grail. The exchange illustrates their cultural differences. Le Gris misses her point. He honestly believes that his rape of her is appropriate because he followed the rule book and she's nothing but an object of his desire. Additionally, the discussion depicts Le Gris as the nouveau-courtier he is -- too unpolished to recognize the difference between metaphor and real behavior.
My two cents: one underestimated reason I think this film failed at the box office (and one I heard a lot of at the time and was written about by some female critics) is that many people, women especially, didn't want to watch a film about sexual violence (or at least the possibility that sexual violence occurred). We deal with the potential of violence being directed against us every day: why would we want to watch 2+ hours of it from a director whose films have a *really* lousy track record on these sorts of issues? I know that was my feeling as I read the plot summaries, and it still is. Hard pass. Might listen to this, though. Cheers.