What sets Sofia Coppola apart from other directors is her perfect grasp of atmosphere. She showed it in Virgin Suicide, Lost in Translation excelled in it and Marie Antoinette provided further proof of how attentive she is to those aspects. Does this mean that her films lack substance? I wouldn't say so. Even though it is a masterful excercise in style, costumes and hair-dos, Marie Antoinette is also a film about loneliness, youth and the idle yet shallow life of the rich. This makes it a far better film than the conventional costume drama tends to be. Coppola both fetischizes a certain historical period and screws with all common ways of how to go about when treating "historical material". What I like best about Marie Antoinette is its lack of reverence. No, true, it is not a film about political history. But it doesn't attempt to be one either. As I see it, it's a film about leisure, the leisurly class, the occupations of this class. The best scenes convey the meaning or lack of meaning of ritualization and distribution of roles: inherited roles, expectations, scolding, tolerance, role-playing - and revolt. Sofia Coppola brings out many aspects of roles, which is a virtue of a film like this.
This film should be taken for what it is: a mood pic. I see nothing wrong with that.
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