"Let them eat cake" was all that was left of France's famous queen after she became the most celebrated victim of the revolutionary guillotine. Did she really say those words? Was she just a spoiled starlet? Or rather, the casualty of a court obsessed by luxury and celebrity?
Director Sofia Coppola gives full rein to Kirsten Dunst as the 15-year-old Austrian who is sold into marriage to produce an heir for the hapless Louis XVI (Jason Schwartzman) in this fairy-tale biographical drama, released in 2006. Closeted and confined by the rigidly hierarchical French court, Marie finds an outlet in the frippery and fun of Versailles.
Coppola is undaunted by bold choices in production design (the film won the Oscar for costume design, while Manolo Blahnik specially designed dozens of shoes), casting (Asia Argento, Marianne Faithfull), or the soundtrack, which features the Strokes, the Cure, Aphex Twin, Adam and the Ants and New Order. This is enterprising film-making, a champagne fairy-tale with plenty of pop.
Marie Antoinette is a Film programme that first aired in 2006 and has been classified a 12 certificate.
