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THE LAST DUEL
Director: Ridley Scott Cast: Matt Damon, Adam Driver, Jodie Comer, Ben Affleck, Harriet Walter, Alex Lawther, Marton Csokas, Tallulah Haddon, Nathaniel Parker, Oliver Cotton MPAA
Rating: Running Time: 2:32 Release Date: 10/15/21 |
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Review by Mark Dujsik | October 14, 2021 There can be no real winner in the eponymous fight of The Last Duel. That's one of the dismal realities portrayed in director Ridley Scott's historical mystery, which is based on real events, which took place in the 14th century and immediately became the matter of national legend. Two men, both of them seemingly noble servants of France, fought to the death in what would turn out to be the final instance of trial by combat in the country's history. One man claimed that the other had raped his wife, and the other denied those charges. In the eyes of the law, the winning man would be proven correct, as victory would be the definitive sign of a divine authority above all judgment of the common folk, lords, and even the king himself. Scott's film opens with a brief taste of that fight, as Jean de Carrouges (Matt Damon) and Jacques Le Gris (Adam Driver) each mounts his horse, retrieves a lance, and gallops toward the other amidst the cheering crowd. The result of this clash is a matter of history, but that's not really the point of the screenplay, adapted from Eric Jager's book of the same name by Nicole Holofcener, Damon, and Ben Affleck (who also plays a significant character in the film). Its concern is with the truth, how perspective can alter a person's understanding of reality, and what little facts and evidence and justice really matter within a society and a culture that care only for status, the word of the law, and the whims of whomever happens to have the most power in any given situation. All of these things, of course, only regard men at the time. There's a third character here, whose story should be the most important, both in terms of the narrative and the legal case between the two men. She's Marguerite (Jodie Comer): Jean's wife, the victim of Jacques' alleged crime, and the only person guaranteed to know the truth of what happened. She is the most important person in this tale, and the screenplay is smart in the way it presents her. Marguerite is the real final authority of a story that is presented in three distinct ways. In the first two, she is seen and played as two completely different women. In the first, she is a devoted and doting wife, and in the second, she serves as an object of forbidden affection. The film first shows the point-of-views of Jean, in the first chapter, and Jacques, in the second, and the entire point is how unreliable those perspectives are. We imagine that the truth of certain scenes, seen from both perspectives, lies somewhere in the middle. It is likely between Jean's certainty that he is a courageous man, entitled to much respect and a high position, who is wronged by the man he called a friend and Jacques' belief that he is a benevolent and loyal but tragically flawed man. That middle ground is almost certainly the case when it comes to the ways these men interact with each other, but the story's third chapter, seen from Marguerite's perspective, tosses all of that aside. None of the feuding, the real or imagined betrayals, and the political maneuvering matter here. The men's beliefs about themselves don't matter, either, because the truth is that each one is right about the other and wrong about himself. The narrative here, divided into those three chapters (all titled "The truth according to" whichever character has the focus), is intentionally choppy and elliptical. We're first with Jean, who's a brave warrior in various campaigns for his king and country, certain that he will inherit a fortress captaincy from his father, and generous in marrying Marguerite, the daughter of a pardoned traitor to France. The first contention between him and Jacques comes from a plot of land, promised to Jean in Marguerite's dowry but given to his friend by Count Pierre d'Alençon (Affleck). The next segment is dedicated to Jacques' point of view, changes some details (Jean's heroic charge into battle, for example, doesn't rally the other soldiers, but Jacques' insistence does), and fills in the blanks of the story, since Jean isn't privy to the Pierre's decisions and orders. The most significant point is that Marguerite's charge that Jacques raped her doesn't come from nowhere in this telling, as it seems to in Jean's side of the tale. From Jacques' perspective, he and the wife of his friend/rival are engaged in pleasantries and conversation that suggest a mutual attraction and/or infatuation. In other words, the film is telling one story by way of this dichotomy, which is fascinating in the way it establishes, only to undermine, sympathy—or vice versa—for each of these men and compelling as a narrative puzzle about perception. The third chapter, though, gives the story over to Marguerite, whose story can and does demolish any sense we have about both Jean and Jacques, the foundation of the law at the time, and the sense that any form of justice for her could be achieved by way of the ultimate duel. It is, after all, not about her, in either a legal (She is only seen as Jean's property) or personal (She would gain nothing but could lose everything) sense. That final fight of The Last Duel, then, is a few things: a testament to how well Scott stages combat, a desperately brutal battle between men who are certain of their righteousness, and, from the only perspective that matters, a harrowing summation of the film's thesis. This is Marguerite's fight, but cruelly, her only role in it is to wait, as these men determine her fate. Copyright © 2021 by Mark Dujsik. All rights reserved. |
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