Just because Louis and Marie-Antoinette ignored the will of the people until it came back to bite them big time, it doesn’t mean the director had to do so as well, and Jodice seems too enamored with his subjects to see the bigger picture.

An impressively severe second feature by Italian director Gianluca Jodice, this is a brisk rejoinder to past cinematic portraits of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette that have rendered even their downfall in the most lavish way possible.

Where it truly shines, besides the staging, is in its portrayal of that marriage that reaches the threshold of the inevitable with the certainty of having known neither love nor desire... [Full review in Spanish]

Jodice composes a succession of mortuary scenes of extraordinary visual power, a compendium between Sokurov and historical paintings, while Canet and Laurent deliver a painfully physical performance...[Full review in Spanish]