![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerThe Girl King is a movie based on the life of Queen Christina of Sweden, which I’ve intended to watch for a long time because the visuals in the Netflix preview looked so striking and also promising for some f/f content.
The visuals are indeed very striking, particularly the landscapes and the costumes. (I know nothing about 17th century Swedish fashion but I would be surprised to hear that the costumes are authentic - but something doesn't need to be historically accurate to be striking.) And there is some f/f, but there's so much going on in the film that nothing quite gets room to breathe. The filmmakers want to cram in Christina’s childhood and the religious conflicts of the seventeenth century and the geopolitical situation of Sweden and Christina’s intellectual interests and her three male suitors and also her love affair with the Countess Ebba Sparre and also Descartes get poisoned for some reason? Enough already.
I also felt it was exactly the wrong level of ambiguous whether Sparre is actually attracted to Christina, or if she feels that she’s got to go along with it when Christina declares her the Royal Bed Companion because, well, how do you say no to the Queen? The filmmakers could lean toward the first and make a tragic love story of it, or go for the second and make something kinky out of it, but as it is they end up falling between two stools.
***
Lo these many years ago I watched another movie loosely inspired by the life of Queen Christina: the 1933 Queen Christina starring Greta Garbo and John Gilberto. Even the term “loosely inspired” suggests that the movie has more in common with Queen Christina’s life than it in fact does: the filmmakers barely glance at Christina’s intellectual interests, and the crux of the plot is a love affair with a Spanish envoy (Antonio, played by Gilbert) who as far as I can tell never even existed. Christina abdicates her throne so she can be with him, and then he inconveniently expires.
Now on the one hand, all of this - the dropping of her intellectual interest, the primacy of the invented love story - super annoyed me when I watched the movie. On the other hand, the part that has really stuck in my mind is the sequence at the beginning, where Queen Christina (disguised as man) is snowbound at an inn where she meets the Spanish envoy Antonio, who is so taken with this youth that he sort of insists they’ve got to spend the night together, in a way that super makes it sound like he’s attracted to this handsome youth.
(And yes. Yes this IS a “we’re stuck in a hotel room together AND THERE’S ONLY ONE BED” plot.)
But once they’re sharing a room of course he discovers that Christina is actually a woman, which he takes in stride, and despite the fact that this all started with Antonio being weirdly insistent about sharing his bed with this youth, on a whole it comes across as way more enthusiastically consensual than Queen Christina and poor confuddled Ebba Sparre.
Also, there’s a scenelet where one of the Spaniards companions knocks on the door and Antonio and Christina send out a note telling him to go away and the Spaniard (who of course still thinks Christina is a dude) just shrugs his shoulders, like “What can you do?”
The visuals are indeed very striking, particularly the landscapes and the costumes. (I know nothing about 17th century Swedish fashion but I would be surprised to hear that the costumes are authentic - but something doesn't need to be historically accurate to be striking.) And there is some f/f, but there's so much going on in the film that nothing quite gets room to breathe. The filmmakers want to cram in Christina’s childhood and the religious conflicts of the seventeenth century and the geopolitical situation of Sweden and Christina’s intellectual interests and her three male suitors and also her love affair with the Countess Ebba Sparre and also Descartes get poisoned for some reason? Enough already.
I also felt it was exactly the wrong level of ambiguous whether Sparre is actually attracted to Christina, or if she feels that she’s got to go along with it when Christina declares her the Royal Bed Companion because, well, how do you say no to the Queen? The filmmakers could lean toward the first and make a tragic love story of it, or go for the second and make something kinky out of it, but as it is they end up falling between two stools.
***
Lo these many years ago I watched another movie loosely inspired by the life of Queen Christina: the 1933 Queen Christina starring Greta Garbo and John Gilberto. Even the term “loosely inspired” suggests that the movie has more in common with Queen Christina’s life than it in fact does: the filmmakers barely glance at Christina’s intellectual interests, and the crux of the plot is a love affair with a Spanish envoy (Antonio, played by Gilbert) who as far as I can tell never even existed. Christina abdicates her throne so she can be with him, and then he inconveniently expires.
Now on the one hand, all of this - the dropping of her intellectual interest, the primacy of the invented love story - super annoyed me when I watched the movie. On the other hand, the part that has really stuck in my mind is the sequence at the beginning, where Queen Christina (disguised as man) is snowbound at an inn where she meets the Spanish envoy Antonio, who is so taken with this youth that he sort of insists they’ve got to spend the night together, in a way that super makes it sound like he’s attracted to this handsome youth.
(And yes. Yes this IS a “we’re stuck in a hotel room together AND THERE’S ONLY ONE BED” plot.)
But once they’re sharing a room of course he discovers that Christina is actually a woman, which he takes in stride, and despite the fact that this all started with Antonio being weirdly insistent about sharing his bed with this youth, on a whole it comes across as way more enthusiastically consensual than Queen Christina and poor confuddled Ebba Sparre.
Also, there’s a scenelet where one of the Spaniards companions knocks on the door and Antonio and Christina send out a note telling him to go away and the Spaniard (who of course still thinks Christina is a dude) just shrugs his shoulders, like “What can you do?”
no subject
Date: 2018-05-19 04:53 am (UTC)Whereas the more recent one sounds like a somewhat confusing experience, at the very least in the way of "how much did I in fact enjoy that, on balance...? *pauses to count pros and cons on fingers*" confusion. It sounds like the kind of film that would at least be very interesting to see in vids and gifsets and other things where the striking visuals can stand paramount, though.
no subject
Date: 2018-05-19 11:47 am (UTC)And The Girl King would be an AMAZING movie for gifs.
no subject
Date: 2018-05-19 08:23 am (UTC)LOL, you can trust the 1930s to at least be completely shameless about their tropes! (The 1936 version of The Thirty-Nine Steps added in an Important handcuffed-together section that is apparently not in any other version, which makes me wonder what the point of them is?)
And they do generally have the honesty to admit up on screen to being "loosely inspired by" and not try and pretend it is all true or all changes were done for very high ethical reasons, which is something.
I'm sorry the more recent one wasn't really what you were after, either, though. Maybe there's a Swedish TV series or something?
no subject
Date: 2018-05-19 11:46 am (UTC)There might indeed be a Swedish TV series - if not now, then someday. Now, whether I would be able to get access to it is a different question (I am really pretty lazy in my viewing habits: if it's not available through Netflix or the library it might as well be on the moon), but I live in hope.
no subject
Date: 2018-05-19 05:07 pm (UTC)I haven't read the book, but I understand nobody gets handcuffed to anyone and this was just an Important Addition by Mr Hitchcock, and I for one am fully behind anyone who wants to handcuff Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll together and make them bicker about it in deserted Scottish inns and mountainsides.
The other versions are apparently much more faithful.
if it's not available through Netflix or the library it might as well be on the moon), but I live in hope.
LOL, as someone who doesn't have Netflix and still works to get my TV (down the mines, the old-fashioned way, starting at 5am every morning), I am understanding (got to get yr money's worth, obv) but also frustrated by everyone being "Oh, so it's not on Netflix? BYE." ;-)