When Ridley Scott is interested in the question of consent to a sexual relationship, in the days of the knights, it results in a hybrid work, sincere but clumsy, and a little long (2:32). Presented at the Venice Film Festival, out of competition, Friday September 10, The Last Duel is inspired by a true and old story, the different versions of which have been related in the work of Eric Jager, The Last Duel: Paris, December 29, 1386 (Flammarion, 2010) : or the fight between two knights, Jean de Carrouges and Jacques Le Gris, the latter being accused of having raped Marguerite, Jean’s wife.
A duel that says a lot about the invisibility of women at that time: if the husband, John, wins a fight, his victory will be interpreted as a sign from God, confirming the thesis of the young wife – the words of Marguerite no. ‘being not taken into consideration by the authorities.
Otherwise, if the husband dies, Marguerite will be considered as having given false testimony: she will not outlive her husband and will be burned alive at the stake. In other words, the husband provokes a duel to save his reputation, thus putting his wife’s life at risk. Preserving the suspense until the last minute, The Last Duel, which will be released in theaters on October 13, plunges the viewer into the roots of the ancestral inequality between women and men, and of the “culture of rape”.
A feminist film that is good in every way
At the origin of the film, Matt Damon transmitted the work of Eric Jager to Ridley Scott, at the end of 2018, a year after the rise of the #metoo movement. Matt Damon plays Jean de Carrouges, Adam Driver, Jacques Le Gris, Jodie Comer, Marguerite, and Ben Affleck, Count Pierre d’Alençon (as a depraved and peroxidized man).
Matt Damon, Ben Affleck and Ridley Scott wrote the male roles, and that of the woman was entrusted to the screenwriter Nicole Holofcener, took care to explain the American director, during the press conference which followed the screening. These details made people smile, but the message is clear: The Last Duel, of which Ridley Scott is also the producer, is a fine feminist film in every way.
Marguerite is not silent, and her husband agrees to support her in her rape accusation – not out of feminism or empathy, but to reclaim her “territory”
Starting with its share of fights, breastplates and betrayals during the Hundred Years War, the film gradually focuses on the couple formed by the knight Jean de Carrouges and the blonde Marguerite: their most basic sexual relations, the disarray of the young wife who, moreover, does not manage to “give an heir” to her husband … Jean, courageous knight but a little rough, maintains stormy relations with Jacques Le Gris, man of letters and libertine, favorite of Count Pierre from Alençon.
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