In the eyes of many fans, the 84-year-old Ridley Scott's new work "The Final Duel" is a "disaster".
After all, the film cost as much as $100 million to produce, but it only grossed more than $30 million worldwide, once again recreating the tragedy Scott experienced in 1982 for Blade Runner.
However, similar to "Blade Runner", "The Last Duel" is quite gratifying at the word-of-mouth level, with a Rotten Tomatoes freshness rating of 85% and a Douban score of 8.4. In addition, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck have joined forces to write and star again after 24 years, and the addition of big-name movie stars such as Adam Dreifer and Judy Comer makes the audience of this film not bad.
Sometimes, we don't need to be suspicious of a masterpiece because it has suffered Waterloo at the box office, and its word-of-mouth movie-going feeling is the criterion for us to select films. "The Last Duel" falls into this category.
01
Like most of Scott's historical action films, The Last Duel is based on real historical events. However, this historical incident was compiled by Eric Jaeger, a professor of English at UCLA, in the book "The Final Duel: The True Story of a Crime, Scandal and Duel Referee in Medieval France".
Matt Damon read the book, was intrigued, and together with his friend Affleck, he adapted it into a screenplay and contacted Scott, who was the best at making historical action films in Hollywood, which led to the birth of the film.
Originally, the role of the squire Legri, played by Adam Dreifer, was supposed to be played by Affleck, but Damon and Affleck considered the familiarity of the two at the mass level, in order to prevent the audience from jumping during the movie and imagining it, so they invited Dreifer to play.
This exquisitely crafted historical film tells the story between Caruzh played by Damon, Legree played by Dreifer, and Margaret played by Comer.
Different from the traditional linear narrative method, "The Final Duel" is divided into three parts, starting from the respective perspectives of the above three protagonists, combing and observing the past of love and hatred between them.
In Caruchh's "Confessions" of Damon, he is a resentful fallen nobleman. He once saved The Life of Legri (Dreifer) on the battlefield and regarded him as a brother in life and death, but the latter betrayed his faith and repeatedly caused bad luck.
Legree first gained the favor of the fief Pietre (Affleck) by rumors, became a high-powered favorite, and constantly collected Caruchy's taxes; later, he snatched Caruzh's inheritance and promoted him to the new captain. Most heinously, Legree raped Caruzh's wife, Margaret (Comer), causing great shame to the family.
But this is not the case in Legree's "Confessions.". What he remembered was that he had saved Caruzh's life and said all the good things for him in front of the lord Piye, so as to avoid more hostility from Caruzh's stupid brother.
As for the so-called rape, it is even more absurd. Legree thought he was a tall and handsome man, and all the women of the world were subordinated to their armor and robes. Although he fell in love with Margaret at first sight, he also believed that Margaret also secretly sent him Autumn Wave and frequently expressed love. The two had only adultery, not rape.
In Margaret's "confession", she has never been respected by men.
The father married himself to Caruzh for the sake of honor; the husband only cared to vent his sexual desires and never cared about her feelings; it was Margaret's mission to give birth to a son, otherwise she was useless in the eyes of her husband and mother-in-law; and the arrogant Legri not only raped Margaret, but also framed her afterwards with no remorse.
Carouge resorted to a life-and-death duel over Margaret's rape in order to escape punishment.
In the Middle Ages, where there were no surveillance cameras and DNA identification, people often judged such indistinguishable cases as "duels", believing that since the Almighty God was just, he was bound to bless the righteous side.
However, if Caruzh loses the duel, it means that Margaret lied and she will be burned alive in public. Whether or not Margaret was raped or not, the ultimate answer depends on the outcome of a brute-force contest between two men.
Who will win, Caruzh or Legree? What will happen to Margaret? "The Last Duel" seems to be playing a life-and-death duel, but it is actually depicting the survival dilemma of medieval women.
02
This narrative technique in "The Last Duel" is referred to by many as "Rashomon".
This term came out of Japan, and later generally referred to the dilemma that it is difficult to distinguish between true and false, and the parties concerned have their own opinions, making the whole picture of the incident difficult to know. Ryunosuke Wasagawa was inspired by this and wrote the short story Rashomon in 1915.
In 1950, Akira Kurosawa combined this novel by Wasagawa with another piece of "In the Bamboo Forest" into the film Rashomon. As a result, the narrative technique of "Rashomon" began to be common in film and television dramas.
But strictly speaking, "The Final Duel" is not entirely consistent. Because whether it is Caruzh's collection of taxes, the loss of the captain's inheritance rights, or the accusation that the fiefs Pière and Legrey robbed them of ownership of their manors, the same exists in Legre's account.
Further, the main plot of the film is consistent in the caliber of the three people. However, in some subtle wording and vague scenes, the tone of the three people's narration is quite different. This narrative technique is quite similar to the 2020 Hong Kong drama "Bridge of Sighs".
In the latter, several couples recall the same event, and the attitudes and words of both sides are judged. Everyone's memory fragments are emotionally inclined to the self, that is, they are the ones who give the most and get the least.
This phenomenon of "memory bias" stems from the fact that people take their own emotions as the center, and then project more compassion and compassion, and pay less attention to the emotional feedback of others.
In The Last Duel, both Caruzh and Legree actually saved each other's lives on the battlefield, but one after the other, which is very clear in the picture. However, they only remember to save each other's lives, and forget that they were also saved.
This moral relationship of giving and owing runs through the sixteen-year-long feud between Caruchy and Legre. Carouge believes that he has been constantly invaded and insulted by Legree, and Legree deeply feels that Caruzh is ignorant and stupid.
The two men are finally born and die in a duel, which seems to be accidental, but it is inevitable. The rape of women is only the fuse, and the damage to men's faces is the root of long-standing grievances.
This is also where this film is worth chewing. On the surface, it is about the rupture between two men, but in fact it is to reflect on the injustices suffered by women through the narrow perspective of men.
Ridley Scott creates a historical reality in the film, while also inserting a pervasive critical perspective in this real context.
Whether it's the city of medieval Paris in a wide-angle shot or the velvet robe on Piyer's body in the close-up shot, it's like Game of Thrones, and we are incredibly convinced, immersed in the palace manor of Charles VI in the late 14th century.
In addition to the super high degree of restoration in this visual landscape, the narrative perspective of Caruch and the narrative perspective of Legree mentioned above also add a psychological weight to this historical reality.
You wouldn't be disgusted with Kaluga when you watched him, because he was so humiliated and so heroic. Like the male protagonists in most Hollywood historical films, you'd only think that Caruzh should be a counter-attacking hero, the lintel of the old times.
Similarly, you wouldn't look at Legree's unit and think he was brazen and selfish. Compared with Caruzh's innate family advantage, he was just an ordinary squire guard, and in order to get ahead, he studied all kinds of knowledge and used emotional intelligence and talent to leap up the ranks of the nobility.
However, when Margaret tells the "truth" – the director deliberately highlights the word "truth" on the screen for two seconds – we find that Caruchy and Legrey are so stupid and arrogant.
This sense of contrast from the level of narrative technique, after combining with the historical context, suddenly adds to the layers of pressure on the patriarchal society. When Margaret responds to this terrible event with the normal reaction of a woman, she is not fair, but humiliated and ignored again and again.
The girlfriend thought that she had been raped for a "reason"; the mother-in-law thought that she was insulting the honor of her husband's family by rejecting her justice; the priests in the palace of justice bombarded her with words and used malice to speculate about this poor woman.
Until we see the duel at the climax of the film, we should have been nervous and worried about it, but I was in the same mood as Margaret, cold as ashes. The men on the dueling arena were only fighting for their own face, and the onlookers outside the dueling arena were watching for curiosity, but no one looked at Margaret, and in this trial of a woman's innocence and life and death, no one cared about the emotions of the parties.
This huge sense of sadness has penetrated the historical barrier of more than six hundred years and hit us off the screen fiercely. We can't help but ask: Is the woman now respected as a complete subject?
Perhaps this is also the biggest revelation that the elderly Scott left us in "The Final Duel".
Flowers without feast