13/09/2021 - VENICE 2021: Ridley Scott helms another Middle Ages-set epic, this time examining the grave topic of sexual assault among members of the French aristocracy

So much grandiosity, such decent intentions (however laced with vanity) and such folly. This could describe any number of pictures by legendary British filmmaker Ridley Scott (who made Alien and Blade Runner, followed by decades of inconsistency), but it applies especially to The Last Duel [+see also:
trailer
film profile], an overlong drama that attempts a moral inquisition into the medieval code of knighthood and chivalry. Borrowing Rashomon’s three-part, perspective-alternating structure, it feels like it’s screaming for us to take notice of how political power has been forever interlaced with sexual domination, yet this will be far from revelatory for the wised-up, mature audiences it’s courting. The UK-US production premiered out of competition on the penultimate day of this year’s Venice Film Festival.

The script, by its actors Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, and also Nicole Holofcener, sees 14th-century France as darkly reflecting the misogyny that still reigns elsewhere in the 21st century, only now, its offenders might be more worldly when it comes to concealing it. But Scott’s mind and sensibility feel ever more marooned in the past – a past which he is admittedly a virtuoso at rendering. The decorated filmmaker can excel at framing even a simple dialogue sequence, with delicate Rembrandt lighting and eerie shadings of candlelight – this cannot be denied. The sense of a palpable, immersive medieval world always convinces, yet the attention to plot and coherence is more careless.

The convoluted story is hard to briefly synopsise – it arguably defeats the filmmakers as well, and they had two-and-a-half hours. But the crux centres on a dispute between French statesmen Jean de Carrouges (Matt Damon in a period-appropriate mullet) and Jacques le Gris (a swaggering, silver-tongued Adam Driver), first over land and patronage, and then over the truth of a rape accusation against le Gris from de Carrouges’ wife, Marguerite (Jodie Comer). Thankfully, the film doesn’t try to relitigate Comer’s claim – something that has apparently diverted scholars of this actual instance in history, which concluded through the supposed “final” use of trial by combat (a duel) to settle the dispute. Driver’s own sub-section of the film, told from his point of view, fares best – starkly candid in the manner in which it shows the rape culture that pervaded the upper echelons of society, with Ben Affleck’s Count Pierre d’Alençon a ringmaster over drunken orgies in the upper levels of his château.

The potent sting of arraigning male power is dulled when the film ends in another strong expression of the same. The film's final act is devoted to Damon and Driver slugging it out on horseback, and then mud-wrestling in each other’s chain-mailed arms, a bloodthirsty crowd baying them on. The victor of this contest would have his version of the story be the official one (as arcane medieval law states), which should work as an instance of dark dramatic irony – a cynical forward look at the way modern sexual assault trials can fail to bring justice to the accuser. But Scott can’t help but stage it with an air of classical triumphalism, not to mention the coda which awkwardly tries to redeem Marguerite as a devoted mother. So, it’s a duel that ends in a stalemate, for sure.

The Last Duel is a UK-US production by Scott Free Films, Jennifer Fox and Nicole Holofcener. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures distributes in most territories.