let them eat rice cakes

Sofia Coppola’s new movie Marie Antoinette, which just opened at Cannes, looks to be interesting. First of all, the audience booed (presumably, the French critics), although it had been highly touted. Then it generated discrepant views from two of the New York Times’s film critics, which is rare. It givest this movie a culture-war subtext, which I find even more interesting. (Coppola caught some flak for her last movie, too, the entertaining, stylish, and knowing Lost in Translation . She was accused of making fun of the Japanese.)

Manohla Dargis ($$) disliked the film, and she thinks Coppola doesn’t get it.

The princess lived in a bubble, and it’s from inside that bubble Ms. Coppola tells her story. Thus, despite some lines about the American Revolution, which is helping drain the king’s coffers and starve his people, Ms. Coppola ignores what’s best about Marie Antoinette’s story.

She doesn’t seem to realize that what made this spoiled, rotten woman worthy of attention weren’t her garden parties and fur-lined shoes, but the role she played in a bloody historical convulsion.

A. O. Scott ($$) has a different take on things:

The applause after the press screening Wednesday morning — there was some! — was mingled with boos, perhaps from die-hard republicans (in the French rather than the American sense) offended by Sofia Coppola’s insufficiently critical view of the ancien régime in its terminal decadence. In the movie, the hungry peasants and restless city dwellers who ultimately brought down the French monarchy are mainly a distant rumor, as the action takes place entirely within the hermetic world of the Bourbon court, with its intricate codes of behavior, its curious blend of idle hedonism and solemn purpose, its pervasive gossip and its obsession with fashion and appearance.

The Guardian called it “baffling and historically obtuse” but admired its sumptuous style.

Coppola herself noncommitally told The Times (London):

“I wanted the film to be credible but I was inspired more by the visual than historical facts. I want people to be transported into another era with an echo of today.”

My interest is piqued. Gotta wait till the fall, though.