The Last Duel

It was only two years ago that David Michôd’s his­tor­i­cal war film The King arrived at the Venice Film Fes­ti­val to bless us all with the unhinged mad­ness of Robert Pattinson’s per­for­mance as the Dauphin of France. In 2021, yet anoth­er epic dra­ma set in days bygone lands on Lido to gift the audi­ence with a lead star who is falling off the rails. To wit: Sir Rid­ley Scott’s The Last Duel sees a very blonde Ben Affleck as a very affect­ed Count Pierre d’Alençon.

Pierre is one of many men in Scott’s tale of mas­culin­i­ty, love and betray­al. Based on Eric Jäger’s 2004 book of the same name, The Last Duel tells the true sto­ry of the last legal­ly sanc­tioned duel to hap­pen in France, which occurred between friends turned ene­mies Jean de Carouges (Matt Damon) and Jacques LeGris (Adam Dri­ver), over a rape claim sub­mit­ted by Carouges’ wife, Mar­gueritte (Jodie Comer).

Set in the feu­dal­is­tic soci­ety of the 14^th cen­tu­ry, the film is split into three chap­ters, each deliv­ered by one of the main char­ac­ters as they recall the trag­ic events of their inter­twined lives in the lead up to the con­fronta­tion that will see the two men face off to the death.

The Last Duel is at its best when Scott ful­ly leans into the are­na spec­ta­cle that sky­rock­et­ed his 2000 Oscar-win­ning cor­nu­copia Glad­i­a­tor to the open arms of crowds and crit­ics alike. As the col­i­se­um gates open, sound reigns supreme, as the sharp clunk­ing of met­al jux­ta­pos­es against the soft yet ago­nis­ing rip­ping of skin.

The men cut and pull and grunt, as even sin­gle droplets of sweat become sopra­nos in this over­whelm­ing orches­tra that is equal parts numb­ing and riv­et­ing. Alas, once the adren­a­line-infused high of the com­bat begins to fade, the film’s shaky por­tray­al of rape and gen­der imbal­ance ris­es to the fore, turn­ing bit­ter the sweet­ness left by Scott’s audio-inclined feast.

Despite bring­ing Nicole Holofcener onboard as a writer to join old pals Damon and Affleck, The Last Duel still pos­sess­es a mas­cu­line aggres­sive­ness that eclipses its attempt at becom­ing a his­tor­i­cal dra­ma for the #MeToo era.

The cam­era lingers on Marguerite’s con­tort­ed face as she goes through the unspeak­able pain of vio­la­tion over and over and over again – a nev­er-end­ing tor­ture that is as point­less as it is vile. Bewil­der­ing­ly, by choos­ing to employ a bru­tal depic­tion of rape as a way of crit­i­cis­ing the dehu­man­i­sa­tion of women, the film feeds into the very pow­er struc­ture it sets out to debunk, a frus­trat­ing miss that threat­ens to cloud Comer’s poignant performance.

“There is no right. There is only the pow­er of man”, says Jean’s moth­er to Mar­guerite as she pon­ders on the fruit­less­ness of her daughter-in-law’s Sisyphean task. And, as we leave Scott’s clev­er­ly craft­ed yet emp­ty extrav­a­gan­za, the words feel as truth­ful then as they feel now.