Plastered in Paris

Movie: Marie Antoinette. Other than the storming of the Bastille and subsequent guillotining of whoever’s heads the peasants felt like lopping off, I know little about French history. And didn’t learn much more from this film. They several times blamed the high taxes on supporting the US Revolution and Marie’s excessive gambling but I suspect there was more to the peasants starving than that. Namely, the horribly poor weather conditions which caused years of crop failure. What the movie did provide was an extremely gorgeous visual, since it was filmed at Versailles. The lives of the royals didn’t seem that bad, especially since the brutal imprisonment and assassinations weren’t dealt with. At the end, they just rode off in a lovely carriage. Most unusual, right off in the opening credits and throughout the movie, viewers are rather assaulted by present day music. And punkish music at that. A little jarring. Ignoring that, I kept wondering how, with all the champagne, candy, sugary cakes, confectionaries and immense meals gorged upon, Marie and Louis didn’t end up weighing 400 pounds.