One imagines the body odors, the stink of dead rats, the miasma rising from the slops, the perfumes splashed on for concealment. Jacquot actually filmed many of his scenes at Versailles, but takes care to display it warts and all. Gossip races through the palace in back corridors and down hidden staircases, and it is worst at night - when a few candles make the shadows seem more limitless. The servants in a place like Versailles subscribe completely to the majesty of their employers, and although they may have no access to outside news, they are sensitive to the slightest shifts in mood from their masters. Since all of the mounting horror takes place at a distance, in whispers, in a way it's more dreadful than if she were learning things firsthand. Based on a novel with the same title by Chantal Thomas, it is limited to what Sidonie can know and understand. This calm and stability will disintegrate with shocking speed over the next few days, and it will dawn upon Sidonie that the earth is shifting beneath her feet.īenoit Jacquot's engrossing film tells a story we know well, seen from a point of view we may not have considered.
The palace room, rich in tapestries and art, is a stark contrast to the rude stone walls of Sidonie's own room, but so embedded is the Queen's Reader with the majesty of privilege that she accepts this without question. Their relationship seems relaxed but not privileged Sidonie is a utility, like a radio in later days, who can be turned on and off at the queen's whim. Now the young Sidonie enters and begins to read to her mistress. She has apparently spent the night with Gabrielle de Polignac ( Virginie Ledoyen), said to be her lover. The queen ( Diane Kruger) reclines in her private chamber, closely guarded over by her lady-in-waiting, Madame Campan ( Noemie Lvovsky). On this morning, that seems inconceivable. The vast, all-powerful edifice of the French monarchy will be swept away in a matter of days, and Marie Antoinette and her husband Louis XVI will inevitably be beheaded. Reports arrive at Versailles that the Bastille has been stormed, and although this is never publicly acknowledged, it spreads as circles of rumor through the ranks of the servants, some of whom perhaps only vaguely understand what it means - and what it will mean for them personally. Over the next three days, we will witness life at Versailles exclusively through the eyes of Sidonie ( Lea Seydoux).
She is the official reader to the queen, and this position gives her a limited stature and some access to the royal life of luxurious decadence.
In the rat-swarming servants' quarters, a young woman named Sidonie Laborde slaps at mosquito bites, hurries through her toilet, and runs toward her appointment with Marie Antoinette. It was not yet a date fraught with destiny. "Farewell, My Queen" begins early in the day of July 14, 1789, at the royal palace of Versailles.
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