The Last Duel (Ridley Scott, October 15,2021) Movie • Page 3

Yeah Rashomon is the one you watch in "Intro to Film 101" and then you discover Ikiru, Stray Dog, High and Low, etc. on your own.

 

Did The Simpsons do a Rashomon episode? I keep finding a throwaway Rashomon joke but not a whole segment.

 

There was the episode where Homer loses his thumb. If I recall they tell it from Homer, Bart, and Lisa’s perspective.

 

The Last Duel is quickly becoming the film with the worst online discourse of 2021, and we aren't even into the thick of awards season yet. People are trying to cast this as some sort of overly masculine bore, but literally every male character is portrayed as stupid and selfish and at best indifferent to the suffering of the female protagonist.

 

If someone was to watch the actual duel scene and come away thinking this movie has anything but the utmost contempt for its male characters and how they have acted throughout the film than idk what to tell them, they need to get their eyes and ears checked.

 

It's very disappointing, especially after I came out of the film thinking it did such a great job exploring it's ideas, to see so many people seemingly miss the point.

 

Marketing definitely failed bc I consider myself a movie buff and had no idea that 1. this is out 2. this is supposedly very good until just a couple days ago. I'll go see it this week

 

90% of people I would imagine have not even seen it. They should toss this thing on streaming and advertise the Affleck/Damon of it all ASAP. It’s not like the second weekend is going to get better.

 

I’d like to say I’m surprised by that discourse, but that’s just how it goes.

The film makes it pretty clear who’s side of the narrative it is on when it lingers on “The Truth” when it introduces Marguerite’s perspective.

Even in Le Gris’s perspective, the rape scene is clearly a rape. There was no he says/she says about it when it came down to both depictions.

 

tbf when I heard the plot description before Holofcener's involvement I was worried haha, but yeah Margueritte and her dad are the only characters who come across well

 

This movie hit me so much that it inspired me to do a full Ridley run. Crazy how many movies he has that I had no idea were his.

 

I think the film does a good job at highlighting how little progress we’ve made as a culture when it comes to dealing with sexual assault. There is an unfortunate number of parallels to the way rape and consent are discussed by the characters throughout the film and with the headlines we read in every high profile sexual assault trial today. I think it was only a few years ago that some conservative congressman made the same claim about rape and pregnancy that is made in the medieval court proceedings here.

 

Seeing the rape scene from both Le Gris' perspective and from Marguerite's was also essential to the most relevant message of the movie, which is that the culture (then and now) is such that a man could actually view what actually happened in the distorted way it appears in the middle segment. He truly doesn't believe he raped her because he believed she was making "the customary protests". And it echoes the earlier scene of the orgy when he chases a woman around a table and then picks her up and carries her to the bed in the exact same way he later does to Marguerite. It's one of the most accurate depictions of the concept of rape culture I've seen on screen.

 

I had no idea what the film was about other than a duel and I was continually impressed that such an old male director could communicate ideas like that and juxtapose the politics of today to the medieval world without being cheesy or hitting you over the head.

 

That is an important moment, because the difference between a woman offering token resistance in order to keep her femininity and full-on rape has virtually no distinction to these men. Even when these men think they are being virtuous they are being violent.

 

I thought it was pretty blunt with its messaging, wasn't really subtle at all, but honestly being hit over the head with this movie's message is what way too many people need sadly

 

Was just reading up on what actually happened and the movie hewed pretty close to the facts. There were some pretty minor deviations but it seems to be largely accurate on the whole.

 

hot damn this rocked. gripping from start to finish. Affleck was so good.

 

I was thinking about the final scene this morning. I appreciate it more than when I left the theater. The sudden bright colors and sunlight along with Comer's performance portray Marguerite at peace and it leaves us on an optimistic note. The trial she was put through was needlessly tormenting and humiliating, but the final scene implies that fighting for the truth is worth it.

 

I didn't take it as an optimistic note. In the end, she's still stuck with an abusive coward of a husband.

 

There wasn't much for women in France to be optimistic about for another 600 years or so.

 

Maybe optimistic wasn't the right word, but the I thought it was interesting to juxtapose the exit from the duel with everyone cheering for her husband and her following behind as this afterthought in this dour and cold atmosphere to then her in a colorful, warm meadow with a more content look on her face and her young child playing nearby. And then the text confirms she was likely free of her husband at that point as he died in the crusades a few years after the duel.

It seemed like a very intentional choice not to roll credits after the duel exit and instead give us that quiet little scene first.

 

But she’s not. Doesn’t it say he dies like a few years later and she lives for another 30 alone after that?

 

True, the epilogue gives the audience that relief that she didn't have to deal with him for long and led a better life. I interpreted her moments after the fight and during the celebration as wrestling with the fact that she's still stuck with Damon's character.

 

The celebration scene was just wrenching to sit through. There is her husband being celebrated as a hero while she silently trots along on her horse behind him. It’s like she’s not even there. Brutal stuff.