The Girl King (2015)

Why so much hype?

A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

This film is laughable. First off, let me just say that there is something very exotic looking about the actress portraying Queen Kristina. This "Malin Buska" actually seems talented for the role, good show of emotions paired with masculine undertones and dominant-aggressive behavior. There is also something very attractive about her being fluent in many languages, and her ever-so slight accent when speaking English. Ebba Spare, on the other hand, otherwise known as "Belle", seems way too submissive in nature (even though she is a servant) and deserved more lines throughout the entire script. After watching the movie I barely remembered she was even in it until I read the cast again. But she looked more of like a doll on display rather than a living, breathing character. Kristina's advances towards her were very cringey. The whole movie seems rushed and much too fast-paced for my liking, or anyone's, for that matter. The message is pretty clear, but the delivery seems like they were given only a single evening to rehearse all of it. Felt a lot like a costume play, not a genuine royalty presentation such as it was done in Magnificent Century (Turkish) and The Tudors (British), and while these two were a televesion series, they should provide a role model for how all monarch-based flicks should appear and be viewed as. Also, as a side note, I think the way Kristina cut her hair near the end of the story was absolutely horrific and truly don't think that kind of a transition was necessary. All in all, an excellent story put into a less-than-mediocre visualization of all the "issues" going on in pre-Industrial Scandinavia. By no way is this the performer's fault, it's the directors producers that tend to nullify the end result of such a glamorous, touching story. But honestly, pretty actressess don't cover up the obvious peresence of spoiled and unskilled movie-making.

I have absolutely no knowledge of Swedish history, so I'm not sure how accurate this telling of Christina - Sweden's 17th century Queen - is. However, I do know that I thoroughly enjoyed this story. What a fascinating character Christina is. It's such a shame that most of what we know about our history has been written by zealots, bigots and fear- mongers. So it's hard to know a historical figure's true story.There were some movie-type issues, but overall it was a good film. I'm not sure why it has received such a crummy IMDb rating, because I truly think it worth watching. It left me so emotional: angry and sad and thankful. And has definitely given me a thirst to learn more about this woman.

Mika Kaurismaki's Queen Christina of Sweden (Malin Buska) is tall, beautiful, and without a hump on one shoulder, but otherwise she's a fair representation of the historic figure. In her restless spirit, intellectual appetite, impatience with the patriarchy and her lesbianism she's a much more accurate representation than Rouben Mamoulian's (Garbo in Queen Christina, 1933). Of course Kaurismaki opts to revive the 17th Century Christina story now because it's a sharp reflection of our times. I don't know how Swedes or Finns will see their lives in this film, but much of it rings clear for North America and Europe today. The film bristles with pertinence, like the male advisor's "Peace doesn't fill our coffers" and her "Austerity is sadistic."Christina's advocacy of peace, culture, the arts, make her a model for modern leadership. In her refusal to accept male authority, especially not to allow any man to claim her as a field he can plow for his pleasure, she is the prototypal feminist. Sadly, the contemporary also limns through her ultimate defeat by the male authority and their rejection of her same-sex passion as "deviance." Her male counsellors conspire against her, drive off her beloved, and drive Christina into madness, until she escapes. We're still hung up on the questions she poses to Descartes: what is love, how do we deal with it, how can we free ourselves from it. We still crave the freedom to define our own destiny and escape our inherited structures and strictures. If we've moved beyond Descartes' assumption that our emotions have a physical source, we continue to build upon his confidence in empirical evidence and in the essential use of reason. But another Cartesian statement propels the film: To find the truth we must abandon everything we have learned or assumed and establish a new understanding of our world. This is the triumph of discovery over habit, reason over delusion, freedom over "destiny." This is how this Christina constantly flies in the face of what she has been taught and what is expected of her. Her escape is ironic. Her advisors having long insisted she marry to produce a clear heir to the throne, she now proclaims one suitor her son and bestows upon him her royal authority. With a quarter of the treasury she departs to Rome, where she converts to Catholicism and enjoys the life of secular culture and stimulation she has craved. As one counsellor bitterly observes, having rejected all her male suitors she settles into life under the authority of the Pope. The last shots, however, play her as exulting in openness, freedom and the light the Swedish court and "thinkers" denied her. She abandons her throne and power to recreate herself in Rome. Now, here's the crowning irony. Mika and younger brother Aki Kaurismaki are famous for acerbic contemporary stories about inarticulate, hard drinking, ugly and lugubrious losers, steeped in 1950s rock and roll. Nobody in a blind test would guess The Girl King is a Kaurismaki film. But here the director does what his heroine does and what her healthiest mentor, Descartes, prescribed. To find the truth, to see how Queen Christina reflects upon our current reality, Kaurismaki discarded his customary period, his familiar genres and his signature style, then and bathos — to make something completely new. And true to our day as it is to his subject's.

The super-interesting trailer for The Girl Kind promised more than was really in the movie. It's kind of an open and unfinished story on multiple levels - Kristina's reign regarding the military campaign, country reforms and her personal life. All these important stories were merely touched in the movie. We never got to see whether or not Kristina actually reformed anything in Sweden at the time, the military campaign was also very vague and her relationship with the Countess deserved much more.I indeed expected more to be seen between the two ladies in terms of chemistry and storyline. Though they shared enough time on screen, the relationship is missing a lot. We could only get a glimpse of Buska and Gadon's potential in a few scenes where they showed subtle, unspoken affection between the two characters. It's a pity the director did not use more of their talent to tell a very personal story of Kristina and how deep the relationship with Sparre must have been. There is enough historical evidence to confirm Kristina's sexuality. A character so passionate about knowledge, philosophy and art surely must have been even more passionate about the affairs of the heart. It's a pity only the dark side of it was depicted in the movie. In spite of this movie being about Kristina, obviously a lot of her is embedded in Sparre's character. Unfortunately, Sparre's side of the love coin was left unexplored.