«After D’Annunzio, I tell the story of the last night of the Royals»- Corriere.it

Après moi le dluge!. Whether Louis XV. uttered that sentence or not doesn’t matter. The reality is that the Deluge did indeed engulf the French monarchy in the late 18th century, with the last royals Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, executed by the revolutionaries after a trial for treason. Gianluca Jodice chose just that flood as the title of the new film Guillaume Canet and Mlanie Laurent. Not the story of the days of the Revolution or the guillotine, but of the royal family’s imprisonment for months in the tower of the Temple of the Templars. I happen to have a book on the trial of Louis XVI. read and got the idea to tell the last night of the last great king. The last absolute monarchy before the beginning of modern times and European democracies, says the director on the set in the Palais Venaria. If we talk about Louis XVI. and his wife Marie Antoinette, lace, high wigs, bright dresses, colours, Versailles or even the guillotine come to mind. Between these two extremes there is a middle ground, a time no one has ever told: the few months that the last king and queen of France were imprisoned with their two children – Maria Theresa and Louis Charles – in a black castle on the outskirts of Paris awaiting execution. It will not be a historical film, he specifies. More of a metaphysical reflection on the end. A subject that the Neapolitan director already dealt with in his debut work The Bad Poet about Gabriele D’Annunzio. Here the heart is the end of the Ancien Rgime, the fall of an era and its most universal masks.

And ambitious project: Italian-French co-production – Matteo Rovere and Andrea Paris for Ascent Film (Banijay Group), Rai Cinema , Quad, with Paolo Sorrentino Associate Producer – an important budget, around 8 million euros. Little is known of the months between August 1792 and January 21, 1793, when the king was guillotined. I did a lot of preliminary work, consulted several historians. The French convinced themselves to follow us by reading the screenplay I wrote with Filippo Gravino: it convinced them. The main source, explains Jodice, is the memoirs of Jean-Baptiste Hanet, known as Clry, the king’s valet (in the film Fabrizio Rongione). The revolutionaries allowed him to remain in service. He wrote a diary day after day in the intellectual French that he was. I took liberties, but a lot of things came from there, including some hard-to-believe ones: like the scene where a jailer forces Marie Antoinette to play the Marseillaise on the old pianola in her cell. The tower of the temple in Paris no longer exists. Napoleon had it demolished because it was a destination for those nostalgic for the monarchy. Filming, which has just been completed – the film is in post-production and will be released in the next season – has been concentrated in Italy. The halls of the Venaria Palace, to which the photograph by Daniele Cipr gives a fateful incidence of light, in which the protagonists emerge in stage costumes by Massimo Cantini Parrini, are perfect. Canet and Laurent trusted, says Jodice. For him, the challenge was to embody a mystery. Unlike Marie Antoinette, Louis XVI. no icon. He wasn’t meant to be king, he became king at the age of 13 after the death of his father and brother. He was a complex man full of obsessions. It is now believed among historians that he suffered from Asperger’s Syndrome. It will certainly be told more, also by the cinema. But here, no luxuries or whims of Versailles. I had Mlanie read Stefan Zweig’s biography, which captures her nature. his last parable: he discovers the responsibilities of queen, wife and mother a meter before death. They seemed like a modern couple in their own way. A masculine man more withdrawn with his little things, she is far less frivolous than legend ascribes to her. They discover love between them only because they die. a story of a non-love. And it fascinates me a lot.