Desire Avenue

You know I really had no interest in this when it came to the cinema here, but I got it on DVD the other day and you know I really really enjoyed it.

Sure the actors all have different accents, there are rock songs on the soundtrack, which in all honesty I think works exceptionally well when they are dancing to Siouxsie And The Banshees Hong Kong Garden. I just liked the fact you saw everything from Marie's perspective. I know it got a lot of harsh criticism, but you know for 2 hours it had me enthralled.

And all of the food looked sooooo nice hehe and there were lots and lots of lovely costumes, dogs and shoes

Usually I can't stand Kirsten Dunst and Sofia Coppola, but I really liked this film. All that pink and sweeties and girlie things, knowing that all will end so tragically (though it's not shown in the film), touched me a lot.

I really want to see this, I love Sophia Coppola. The film got a bit of a panning on release here, but I felt that was partly the inevitable 'build 'em up, knock 'em down' syndrome in effect - Coppola has been a critical darling for a while now, so she was bound to come in for a drubbing even if the film was good.

For me the decision to use a modern rock soundtrack makes total sense in the context of the story, I don't see it as controversial. Marie Antoinette was a teenager when she became Queen (something I didn't realise until studying the French Revolution for my degree), so I'd assume using pop/rock music is one way Coppola is trying to convey that in the film? It's a great idea, in theory.

It was fascinating to see it through her eyes, it didn't portray her as the idiot she is known as historically, but more a very naive and sheltered young woman who had absolutely no idea or concept or life outside of her own world. I liked how her world was simply the palace and her retreat, and how she longed to go to Paris to the opera, have fun, and the pressures put on her to produce an heir to the throne. The film shows the gossip, scandal hungry, bitching of the royal court, the sheer materialism and consumerism is amazingly captured. I tell you the food looked so damn good, don't watch it if you are hungry

I studied the French revolution for my A'levels, so I was sort of put off seeing the film at the time due to the fact that I knew how events happened as history was recorded and that I'd always been more interested in the post revolutionary politics of France. Once I found out that the film covers the period prior to and then the tip of the revolution, focusing simply on Marie Antionette, I got a little more interested. I then became intruiged more so when I heard that the soundtrack was a mix of classical and modern rock. The music is great as always in Sophia's films, ranging from The Aphex Twin to Siouxsie & The Banshees to The Cure. The masked ball sequence where they are all dancing classically to Hong Kong Garden is one of my favourite scenes in any film of late!

It's like a music video crossed with history drowned in visual glam with really good performances. I loved The Virgin Suicides, one of my all time favourite films, but wasn't taken too much by Lost In Translation, so I honestly was not expecting to be as blown away by it as I was. Typically I've rushed out now and bought it hehe