The Last Duel: Grimly absorbing medieval drama

The Last Duel (2021) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated R, for strong violence, sexual assault, graphic nudity and profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.15.21

Does actual truth exist?

 

Or is “truth” inevitably shaded by the perception and biases of the person claiming to present it?

 

Honoring a degree of chivalry neither man feels at this point, Jacques Le Gris (Adam
Driver, left) and Jean de Carrouges (Matt Damon) clasp hands prior to the duel that
will leave one of them dead.

Director Akira Kurosawa famously explored this notion with 1950’s Rashomon, in which numerous characters deliver subjective, alternative and contradictory versions of having witnessed the murder of a samurai. Actual “truth” proves to be elusive.

Scripters Nicole Holofcener, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon — adapting Eric Jager’s 2004 historical study of the same title — have taken a cue from Kurosawa, with their intriguing approach to director Ridley Scott’s lavish new film. The “last duel” refers to the last official judicial duel permitted by the French King (Charles VI, at the time) and the Parliament of Paris, which took place on Dec. 29, 1386.

 

(Let me pause, to acknowledge mild surprise; I’d have expected such duels to continue for many centuries beyond that date.)

 

The death match resulted from Norman knight Jean de Carrouges’s accusation that his wife, Marguerite, had been raped by squire Jacques Le Gris, who denied the charge. When existing legal options for redress were thwarted by Count Pierre d’Alençon — under whom both men served, but who favored Le Gris — Carrouges cleverly (rashly?) demanded a “trial by combat,” wherein the survivor’s version of events would be “sanctified by God’s judgment.”

 

Interesting times, the 14th century…

 

This era has been persuasively established by Scott, production designer Arthur Max, and cinematographer Dariusz Wolski. Everything looks and feels authentic: the harsh, unforgiving landscape; the massive, fortified castles and estates; costume designer Janty Yates’ myriad creations for nobles, commoners and serfs; and the boisterous, bedraggled, grime-encrusted cast of many, many hundreds (if not the iconic thousands).

 

Damon’s scruffy, hulking Jean de Carrouges is bold, rash and a formidable warrior. He’s also emotionally adrift, having lost his wife and only son to the plague. Uneducated and unable to properly manage his estate, he’s forever behind in the “rent” owed Pierre d’Alençon (Affleck, initially unrecognized beneath curly blond hair and beard), which annoys the count.

 

Carrouges and Le Gris (Adam Driver) began as neighbors and friends; the latter became godfather to Carrouges’ ill-fated son. They serve in bloody battle together, an example of which opens this film: a brutal, gory scrum of iron-clad men bashing each other to death. With horses, swords, daggers and battle axes. 

 

Several such melees take place as the story progresses, staged for maximum impact by editor Claire Simpson, fight choreographer Troy Milenov and stunt coordinator Rob Inch. They’re not for the faint of heart.

 

As to where the relationship between Carrouges and Le Gris goes from there…

Goodbye Christopher Robin: Farewell, this film

Goodbye Christopher Robin (2017) • View trailer 
2.5 stars. Rated PG, for fleeting but graphic war images
By Derrick Bang

Brief portions of this biographical drama are endearing: precisely what fans may have imagined, when wondering how Winnie the Pooh was created.

To the complete surprise of his parents (Domhnall Gleeson and Margot Robbie), their son
Christopher (Will Tilston) is furious when confronted with a toy shop's massive cache of
stuffed bears in the likeness of his bear. The notion that the public soon will be able to
own such faux copies is more than the boy can stand.

Alas, the rest feels like character assassination, akin to the hatchet job done on Walt Disney and P.L. Travers, in 2013’s Saving Mr. Banks.

One must be wary of film biographies that are “inspired” by actual events, since this often is code for exaggeration and “made-up stuff.” Scripters Frank Cottrell Boyce and Simon Vaughan have succumbed to this temptation, in one case rather egregiously (apparently in service of “dramatic tension”).

Such embellishment can be excused when little is known about the subject(s) in question, but Boyce and Vaughan had much from which to draw: Alan Alexander Milne’s numerous essays, along with Ann Thwaite’s sterling biography; and — most particularly — Christopher Robin Milne’s own memoirs, The Enchanted Places, The Path Through the Trees and Hollow on the Hill.

Director Simon Curtis’ film certainly looks and feels authentic. Production designer David Roger has done a masterful job of recreating the sparkle and sophistication of 1920s London, along with the rustic, cozy and sun-dappled East Sussex countryside that A.A. Milne found so comforting.

Curtis even used actual locations, most crucially “Pooh Bridge” and Ashdown Forest, the wilderness adjacent to Cotchford Farm, where Milne’s son — Christopher Robin, who went by the nickname “Billy Moon” — spent his childhood. (The actual Cotchford Farm still stands, but was unsuitable for filming; a similar property nearby was used for exterior shooting.)

The problem is that this film’s tone is relentlessly dreary, even mean-spirited. Milne’s wife Daphne is portrayed as a cold-hearted, mercilessly self-centered monster: an interpretation that Margot Robbie nails all too well. We hate her on sight, and our opinion only lowers with time. Daphne lacks even a whiff of motherly instinct, having apparently lost interest in her child when he turned out to be a boy, rather than the girl she wanted.

Nor did she abandon that hope gracefully, insisting that her son be garbed in smocks and dresses throughout his childhood.