Review movie: ‘The Last Duel’

 This film can finally be shown in Indonesia through Disney+ Hotstar since January 5, 2022, after the confusing news regarding its release at the end of 2021 is increasingly unclear. 'The Last Duel' is a film directed by Ridley Scott, an 83-year-old director.

If we look at his filmographic track record, he has explored a lot of film genres, from 'Alien', 'Thelma & Louise', 'Robin Hood', 'Hannibal' or 'The Martian.'

Now now in his latest film, Scott tries to explore an epic story about the events surrounding the rape of a noblewoman in medieval France.

In this film, Ridley Scott collaborated with Matt Damon and Ben Affleck and Nicole Holofcener as a screenwriter. This is the second collaboration for Ben Affleck and Matt Damon since they won the Oscar for the film 'Good Will Hunting' in 1998. In this film, apart from being involved in writing the script, Damon and Affleck also played a role here.

The Hundred Years' War is engulfing France, the knight Jean de Carrouges (Matt Damon) has been at war for almost a year. When Jean returns from battle, his wife Lady Marguerite de Carrouges (Jodie Comer) admits to having been raped by her best friend and fellow knight, Jacques LeGris (Adam Driver).

Overcome by a passionate rage, Jean challenges LeGris to a duel with win-or-death rules.

Inspired by a true story

'The Last Duel' was inspired by the book written by Eric Jager and published in 2004 entitled The Last Duel: A True Story of Crime, Scandal and Trial by Combat in Medieval France . Jager wrote this book based on true events about the last legal duel in France.

The film is divided into three parts, telling three versions of the same story based on the perspectives of Jean de Carrouges, Jacques LeGris and Lady Marguerite de Carrouges. Set in 14th century France, 'The Last Duel' uses a complex narrative structure to tell the story of crime from multiple points of view.

Ridley Scott uses details and shifts in perspective from each character and pours it into storytelling. When the story begins to unfold in three versions, the truth of each story becomes a differentiator from the previous version of the story.

Each of the narratives competes with each other to claim the true truth. Scott in the early scenes builds a lot of intrigue so that the narrative structure is filled with uncertainty. In that way, Scott seemed to 'force' the audience to question everything that happened from each version of the story.

Where the truth of the three narratives is, at its core is a story that explains how they see themselves and also about how other people see themselves.

Apart from being inspired by a true story, the narrative structure in this film is also inspired by the classic film Rashomon. Rashomon is a crime drama genre film produced in Japan in 1950 and directed by legendary director Akira Kurosawa.

Rashomon tells the same story from a different perspective. Where the story is also about rape, in the film, a man is slain and his wife has been raped by three people and then gives their respective testimonies.

The first to come forward as a witness was a samurai who was alleged to have raped his wife and even killed her husband. Then the next witness is the woman herself and finally there is the spirit of the man who was killed.

Both films, 'The Last Duel' or Rashomon, actually have the same core message, namely that humans have a hard time being honest about themselves and sometimes humans also prevent them from knowing the full truth about what happens to other people.

In this film, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon each wrote from a male perspective and recruited Nicole Holofcener to present the point of view of the female character played by Jodie Comer. Here, Jodie Comer appears charming as a woman caught in the middle of a feud between two men.

Perspective of life in medieval France

'The Last Duel' also presents an interesting show about life in France in the Middle Ages in terms of gender, social, political and religious issues.

Where in this era there is a very different perspective of course from life today, one of which is that women who were married at that time legally belonged to their husbands.

So based on the law, the alleged crime of LeGris that must be tried is a crime against Carrouges the husband, not against his wife.

Then the next one concerns the widespread belief in that era, that this kind of duel will reveal who is guilty and who is innocent.

They believe that the God who knows the truth will allow the innocent to live and of course the guilty will be killed.

So even though the audience might think it's something that sucks, but that's the law and perspective that happened in society in that era.

Conclusion

Those expecting an action movie may be disappointed with what 'The Last Duel' has to offer. Although when the film starts, it looks familiar from so many films set in the Middle Ages.

When the majestic and mighty castle seemed to soar and the onlookers cheered wildly, as two knights on horseback attacked each other and their weapons drawn ready to kill each other.

However, in the future this film will be filled with dialogue, perception and interaction between characters. Then for the climactic battle itself, it is quite lively, tense and brutal.