The Death of Louis XIV

In the final scenes,... the painterly mise-en-scene and cinematography - golden and ochre hews, Venetian reds, soft camera focus and the glowing whiteness of doctors' caftans, illumined by multiple light sources a la Vermeer - turn death into a feast.

Serra's sad, stately, haunting addition to the slow-cinema genre doubles up as both an intimate study of the Sun King's death and a requiem for Europe's fading arthouse scene.

Flashes of comedy soon give way to an atmosphere of quiet, inevitable tragedy.

The irony of the king's death is heightened by its straightforward presentation and procedural approach. The Death of Louis XIV is a very singular formalist filmmaking in its highest order.