The Last Duel

I remember hearing about this film around the time it came out and thinking that it sounded right up my alley. Ridley Scott, historical drama... I think I briefly looked into whether I'd be able to see it in my area, but the answer at the time was no, so I just forgot about it again.

The other week something reminded me of the title, and while looking it up, I found that it was now on available on Disney+ so I ended up watching it there. And wow, what a movie. Great drama, great visuals and great medieval vibes. The fact that it's based on real events adds a lot of weight to the story too. I really enjoyed the three-act structure that depicted events from different perspectives.

First we hear from Jean de Carrouges, courageous and honourable knight who repeatedly bleeds for his king and loves his wife, but keeps getting fucked over by life in general, and by his former friend Jacques Le Gris in specific.

When we see the story from Le Gris' point of view, the picture of Jean becomes less flattering: he's loyal and brave, yes, but also not the sharpest tool in the shed and often lacking in grace when it comes to social situations. The well-educated Le Gris seems to find himself at odds with him often somewhat by accident and actually feels conflicted about it.

When he meets Marguerite, Jean's new wife, he's delighted to find that she's intellectually more on his level and becomes obsessed with her. I thought it was interesting that when he goes to rape her, we see that act for what it is even during "his" part of the story, but it's done in such a way that the viewer can also see why Le Gris himself might not fully recognise what he's done, and why he may be speaking with genuine conviction when he repeatedly declares later that he didn't commit a crime.

Finally, Marguerite's account of events is presented as the most truthful and adds nuance to both of the men's point of view. It turns out she's the brain to Jean's brawn, but things are not as rosy between them as his own story made them out to be. He's not exactly portrayed as a bad husband (in my opinion anyway) but he's a man hardened by many battles and often seems to look at his wife as just another one of his possessions more than anything else. I thought it was telling when his reaction to her confessing to him about the rape was to shout angrily about how Le Gris had wronged him yet again, with no care for his wife's pain.

The aftermath of the rape for Marguerite was heart-breaking to watch, from Jean always looking at her with a sliver of doubt in his eyes even after seemingly believing her, to her best friend not believing her at all because she once described her future rapist as "handsome". The hardest gut punch to me was her conversation with her mother-in-law, who flatly explains that she was also raped in her youth and that "the truth doesn't matter", a lady simply has to bear it and move on with her life without making a fuss about it.

The duel between Jean and Le Gris made for a fantastic climax, a brutal and visceral battle that had me on the edge of my seat, interspersed with shots of Marguerite looking on in pure terror, knowing that torture and death might lie in her future if the wrong person wins.

It was just great drama all around, with a fair look at how much it sucked to be a woman in medieval Europe, sometimes in ways that are still relevant today, and it's just a generally interesting and nuanced portrait of people being (often unintentionally) horrible to each other.

Doing a bit of reading up afterwards, apparently two main differences to the historical events were that the rape was a lot more brutal in real life, and that Le Gris claimed to never even have been at the Carrouges residence. I can see why they changed those things though - the first is obvious, the second because it simply would've made for a significantly less interesting story if it was a clear-cut case of Le Gris simply lying about everything as opposed to thinking he did nothing wrong.