The King Is Dancing (2000)

Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Simply Perfect

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Good concept, poorly executed.

Another reviewer was mistaken when he wrote, "In order to understand the movie, one has to be quite familiar with French history ...." While it wouldn't hurt to know everybody's back story, it is NOT essential to appreciating this movie. Before I watched it, I had never heard of Lully or Cambert or Anne of Austria; I had heard of Molière and Conti but knew nothing about them except their names; but I had no trouble at all following the movie and enjoying it as much as I could with its substantial flaws.The same reviewer complained that the actors playing Molière, Conti and Cambert were much too old, that all three were closer to Louis' age. What bothered me more than the wrong ages of some of the supporting characters was the fabulous gorgeousness of the actors who played Louis and Lully. Please! There are good portraits of both men, and both of them were as homely as my aunt Gertrude - especially Louis.That a man who looked like a gargoyle dwarf (he was only a few inches over five feet tall), saddled at the age of four with a bankrupt, strife-torn, second-rate country, transformed himself into the Sun King and his country into a major world power, and by the force of his will completely dominated Western civilization for nearly a century - and STILL, more than 300 years later, and despite the horrific revolution that destroyed the world he created, is the single most significant person in the history of France (only Napoleon comes close, and he was a flash in the pan compared to Louis) - is a big part of what makes him so extraordinary. If he had looked like Benoît Magimel, what would be the big deal? Gorgeous people automatically control the world; they don't have to DO anything. Louis is fascinating because he was NOT gorgeous, and making him gorgeous wipes out 75% of what makes him interesting.The answer to both that reviewer's and my beefs with this movie is that its makers had no intention of making an historically accurate quasi-documentary about this fascinating man and the almost equally fascinating people around him. They intended to make an overblown, potboiler soap opera based loosely on real people. They made the principals gorgeous because who cares what happens to ugly people? They made the villains grotesque and old because if they had been young we might not have known they were the villains.This is a French movie, but it might as well have been made in Hollywood. It is cheap (and I'm not talking about money) melodrama, with gorgeous, dashing heroes and old, ugly, hunched-over, troll-like villains with grotesque birthmarks on their faces. It was NOT made for experts in French history or any other persons of intelligence and discernment.It was made for an audience that neither knows nor cares how accurate it is or who the people in it are. That's how Hollywood does everything, by formula - the same formula they used in silent westerns, where you knew the good from the bad guys by the color of their hats - so audiences don't have to think, don't have to understand anything. They know by their looks which characters to cheer and which ones to boo, and that's all that matters.

The movie misses a better plot, it deserves a better plot when shooting at the Versailles and dealing with Louis XIV. Not that it is bad, just don't expect too much. The costumes, the location, the music, the historical facts, it all seems to be present, but the director just didn't make good use of it. It is an entertaining movie for those who like costume-dramas though, be not mistaken. I had expected it to be better. The characters are well drawn, the actors are good enough, especially the Queen and the Dance Master. The director did not fear the use of some explicit body-language, something that I applaud, it fits well in this landscape of courtly love.

A story of the Sun King told through flashbacks from the mind of his choreographer and court musician Jean-Baptiste Lully. The director didn't want to make an accurate depiction from his life, which is his total right, but freely mixed historical fact with luscious, soap-opera fiction with static characters and overblown baroque settings. It is so boring and pointless you feel the need the vomit all over the rich costumes and make-up, in an uncontrolled reflex of nausea and a deliberate attempt to give all that lifeless material some soul. I am still waiting to see a story from Louis XVI, which is worth seeing.

Having purchased the CD of Le Roi Danse, I was looking forward to the film. At last it was on in Norwich on Tuesday 17th September and I was very impressed with the story-line, acting, and of course the music. It begins with Lully preparing to conduct his sumptuous music whilst waiting for the King. Being very impatient, he begins without him, and subsequently stabs himself in the foot, which ultimately leads to his death. The film then drifts back to his introduction to the court of Louis 14th - The Sun King with all its' splendour. If you love the music of Lully, you will not be disappointed. I am hoping that this film can be purchased, either on VHS or DVD - I would certainly buy it.