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I love watching movies that are both technically sound and have a solid script. The Last Duel is exactly such a movie. The film, tells about a real event that took place in France in the 1300s. Two brilliant knights of the French army, who were struggling with the Hundred Years' War at the time, and more importantly, two of their old friends, were tested by a sensational event. While Jean de Carrouges and Jacques le Gris are burning with their rivalry in the military and political fields, the claim that le Gris raped Carrouges' wife, Marguerite, fuels this fire even more.
DIRECTING
The Last Duel is adapted for the big screen, directed by Ridley Scott, from the 2005 novel of the same name by Eric Jager, who reflects the Middle Ages in all their darkness in his novels. Our brother Scott did what he did again. Thanks to his directing, all messages are given in a subtle way rather than in a shallow way. At the same time, the movie leaves the atmosphere of a boring history movie. It applies the "Rashomon effect" technique, which is the most successful aspect of the movie, at least as successfully as the Rashomon movie itself.
Dariusz Wolski produces masterpieces in images. Period costumes, shooting angles, and the film's color palette are completely compatible with the script. There is especially a final scene that I will tell you about in a moment... It may be the classiest fight I have ever watched.
RASHOMON EFFECT
This technique, which is referred to as the Rashomon effect, is a method of storytelling and writing that gives different perspectives and perspectives to the same event by giving contradictory comments or explanations by the people involved in an event in cinema. The technique takes its name from the famous 1950 movie of the same name. Interestingly enough, the plot of that movie overlaps with The Last Duel. In this movie, we watch the events in 3 parts, from the perspectives of 3 different people.
After witnessing the incident with the two knights' own egos and masculine pride, we witness the closest thing to reality through Marguerite's eyes, and the reality of how worthless women were considered in Medieval Europe hits us once again. The choice of this technique may also have been made due to the "subjectivity of historical sources".
SCENARIO
As I mentioned, the movie is based on historical records. However, there is not much room for women in the history of Medieval France. That's why there isn't much documentation about the last episode of the possible reality fiction we watched in 3 episodes, which we watched from the woman's perspective. Even history hasn't written much about women. Just like in the movie, the duel was not actually done for the honor and pride of women, but for the ego battle of men.
The biggest reason why we can see some details from a woman's perspective that we never see in a man's and why we feel so good is that Ben Affleck and Matt Damon decided that they needed a woman. With this move based on the idea of "a woman narrating the woman", Nicole Holofcener joins our screenwriter group. It's very good. Thus, the film explains its problem in a simple but classy way. Not by saying "Girl power, dude!"
JACQUES LA GRIS
The film uses this effect so well that we understand exactly how each character and the events are reproduced. So much so that Jacques Le Gris is actually supported under all circumstances by his one and only count, who enjoys casually in his office, and of course, he even gives the possibility that no woman would want him. For this reason, it was not believed that he had raped Marguerite, but that their affair was an adultery based on mutual consent. Because when it comes to light after the events, the nun says "adultery", but does not mention rape. In the progress scene of Le Gris, the woman is struggling and screaming, while the woman is in a quieter state.
JEAN DE CARROUGES
And when we come to the reality of Jean de Carrouges, we witness another masculine illusion. Carrouges tells us the parts of the story that are not useful to him by censoring them. Here we see moments where he neither raped Marguerite nor was he taken seriously and became a laughing stock in the communities he made great efforts to be a part of. In this perspective, Carrouges is a noble knight who betrayed his most trusted friend, a strong soldier, Marguerite's only hero, and a warrior of justice who pursues what is rightfully his...
This character, entrusted to Matt Damon's acting, is almost likable in this narrative!
However, in fact, he is the one who marries his wife only for her dowry, who fights the duel for his own pride, not his wife's, and says to his own wife, "Come, I won't let him be the last one to touch you." He is actually a scumbag who rapes women and sees women as his stud. He fights the duel not for the sake of the chastity of the woman, but to show his masculinity and turn it into a show of courage.
MARGUERİTE DE CARROUGES
In the third part, where we watch the events from where Marguerite stands, we also witness many conversations that we did not see in the first two parts; The negotiations made over her, the emphasis on her "female duty", and the shallow view of herself, and therefore of any woman living in the Middle Ages, appear before us in all their harshness. The dull reflection of rape in the first two narratives is replaced by real scenes that are quite difficult to watch. Unlike the other two chapters, it is not a self-centered perspective but reflects the facts. Marguerite, who pursues the truth at the risk of being burned, of course, encounters many difficulties in this process. These include her husband's mother and her friends who do not believe her.
WOMEN IN THE MEDIEVAL
In his confessional, Le Gris says that he sinned against a man he used to consider a friend. Considering that he is in love with Marguerite, Le Gris does not consider it a sin to possess her by force. He thinks he committed a sin because he was with his ex-friend's wife. This is what bothers him. Because back then, rape was seen as a crime against the man's property, not against the woman.
These words of his are also compatible with what Jean's mother said to Marguerite.
“Guys like Le Gris have women when they want them. Who do you think you are? You are no different from the girls who were raped in the war."
MESSAGES
The Last Duel, deals with many problems such as sexual abuse of women, domestic pressure, the treatment of women when they report this abuse to official authorities, the pressure that even the judiciary puts on women, and the question of whether they enjoy rape, does this without losing its sincerity.
LITERALLY "THE LAST DUEL"
This duel and the scenes after it, which are the last scenes of the movie, are quite epic. As far as historians interpret it, it is quite compatible with history. This is how duels are really done. After these artistic scenes that will be watched again and again, the closing scene hits us in a different way. With Scott's great direction, that shooting angle actually gives us everything the movie wants to say. Marguerite and those facial expressions, that atmosphere, that heaviness we see right after Jean's pride on the horse...
The fact that the whole incident is about the man's property, not the woman... And even today, there are still some minds that cannot see women as just "women"... Those who are constantly looking for an adjective and go crazy when they cannot find it... The worst part is those who always equate their own point of view with the facts. ...
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