The biggest success of the story is the character of the king, distinct and full, and the biggest failure is also him, because he is not the first protagonist but so blatantly distinct and full. The writers favor him by keeping him on the cusp of a major conflict for a long time, using all the most meaningful details to shape him. Both the doctor and the queen are unfortunately thin on the ground because of him.
The queen is bad-tempered, ignored by the king at every outburst, and then ignored again by the audience because of the king’s teasing attitude, and we all have to deliberately look back to distill a little something of her character and how she behaved in that not-so-flirtatious love affair. When she first entered the palace, she said she would have to resign herself to her fate and stop asking for anything, and she really stopped asking for anything. This is how she acted after facing her first broken desire: to give up. It really wasn’t a very good lead.
Then the doctor comes along and she has a new longing: real love, but it’s too good to be true. Whether it’s browbeating at a dinner table dance or setting up a small bedroom for cheating in a dark part of town, it’s not exactly a person’s best effort to overcome when faced with great odds. Such weak ups and downs do not make the audience enjoyable.
I thought that, in the face of sudden love, the doctor will first contradict and restrain for a while, first reject her, make her pain and hurt, and then she will do something because of this pain. Who knows the doctor is really not afraid of the newborn. Of course, as I had hoped, there will be some blood, but in that cramped situation blood is most likely to break through to heaven. And then there is the last, the queen faced with a difficult situation where her illicit love was revealed and the doctor was denounced by the nation, she did not do anything as usual, and continued to receive punishment after piously resigning to her fate and roaring twice. A woman who holds the books of enlightenment in her arms all day long and pursues her freedom only by stealing, should not be sitting in the position of the first heroine.
As for the doctor, he did not show half as much sexuality in his time with the queen as he showed in his time with the king. He also sailed for a long time, from being entrusted to win the king’s love and trust, then interfering in politics, inspiring the king, changing the country, falling in love with the queen, until finally dying on the guillotine, the ideal he always wanted to accomplish and the love that blossomed halfway was always the only calamity: political enemies used his affair with the queen and the public to destroy him. However, his struggle is as weak as a mole.
This is the tragic fate of the two tragic protagonists. Their slowness and inaction in the face of difficulties make this tragedy unsuspecting. I don’t know if this lack of suspense is a new kind of dog’s blood. You know, the classical tragedy, regardless of the success or failure of the characters’ end, if the characters’ struggle to the best of their ability is missing the most powerful ribs of the body of the story. This should be an awe-inspiring iron rule.
As a rule, the tone and composition of the film’s shots are beautiful and gentle, just like most films of its kind, striving for the refinement, elegance, calmness and ambiguity of a classical painting. Everything is used in the right way. The music is so submissive that one always forgets it exists. The narrative rhythm is also impeccable. There is no ambition. Only the main idea is a bit vague and lacks sharpness and toughness.
The story takes place at a turning point in human thought, but unfortunately, religion, the Enlightenment, freedom, change, Voltaire, all these terms seem to be particularly out of place in the whole story. If they were the main theme, then the focus of the film would not be on a pair of forbidden lovers, and the central phrase of the film’s title would not be the three words of the history of the affair. Then it can only be treated as a love story, it will again return to what was said before: a small town doctor who wants to change the world, because he met the king and found a way out, a woman imprisoned in fate, because she met the doctor and found a way out, and then the two join forces, respectively, with the usurpation of royal power and the pursuit of love to reflect their own rebellion and the desire for freedom. The problem, however, is that neither of them is vigorous and passionate enough.
Moreover, in the freedom of their ideals and love, there is an innocent man.
Talking about this innocent king makes people serious. What does it take to create a character as complex and simple as chaos? When you think he is morbid, you can see that his every action makes sense at the same time. When you think he is simply stubborn, you find that he has always been full of the eagerness to govern the country well. I thought he was cowardly, but then I suddenly saw him yell a shocking ‘I am the king’ and ‘dissolve the council’ in the council in order to save the doctor. That is when he faced a great dilemma a breakthrough in the struggle of self.
Also, don’t think he was stupid, even when the doctor asked him to sign the document that ‘some documents no longer require the king’s signature’, his final sharp stroke of ‘yes’ was simply because of the one and only reason: the doctor understood His loneliness, his need for him. That’s why he bowed his head slightly, and smiled and called the doctor the King of Prussia, to hide the alarm in his eyes and the flash of unease in his heart. It was only because he needed him so much that he was willing to let go.
And this need had been very direct. As the king said at every turn, he wanted to be happy when he was with him. This also reflects the childlike nature of the king. This nature is sinless and weightless, not knowing how to betray. Look, when the king found out about the doctor’s affair with the queen, instead of being angry about the betrayal or something like that, he questioned the doctor: all this time, what you really needed was her. Later the king vents at the table, angrily shouting that the little bastard’s biological father is the King of Prussia, and leaves the table. The doctor ran out to dissuade him, saying something like: Do you want to be alone again? So the king got angry and offered to hug the doctor.
In this way, the scriptwriter has spared no effort to express the king’s desire and action, in a variety of positive, sideways, direct and detailed ways, thus making him a distinct and rich character. Faced with such an innocent and simple young king, who does not know what freedom is, but stubbornly pursues love all the way, who can bear to accuse him of anything?
So, for this character, give one more star.
