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In Ridicule, French director Patrice Leconte's supremely caustic and biting tale of life at the Court of Louis XVI at Versailles, the aristocrats both literally and figuratively live by their wits. And occasionally they die for their lack of it. Of course, most of them will end up dead in six years time anyway -- for the year is 1783 and the Revolution is just around the corner. Hence, we are in Dangerous Liaisons territory, and though these characters are not quite as monstrous as the protagonists of Laclos' masterpiece (and I mean the original novel); the subsequent play and film versions were in comparison, well, ridicule, they are certainly not a nice bunch of people you might take home to Mom and Dad. In this rarefied world, wit is indeed the ultimate weapon -- as the ads proclaim -- and the ultimate goal of a perfectly phrased epigram is not to amuse so much as to insult. Mind you, the sharper and more humiliating the barb, the more amusing it will be to everyone else, and the higher the regard in which you will be held. C'est la vie.
Into such a world comes our slightly country bumpkinish scientist Grégoire Ponceludon de Malavoy (beautifully played by Charles Berling) who needs the King's funding for a project to drain the nearby swamps where mosquito-carried disease is killing off the peasant population. As you might imagine, the Court is utterly apathetic from a humane point of view, but if Ponceludon can prove himself wise in the ways of ridicule, he will, nonetheless, get the funding he needs. |
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Early on, someone comments that Ponceludon is less stupid than he looks, and without missing a beat, Ponceludon rejoinders, "And that, Monsieur, is the difference between us." And so it is clear that our hero is off to a dazzling start. Even the glacially stunning and two-faced Mme. de Blayac (Fanny Ardant, radiant as ever) takes instant note of the newcomer. A woman of certain age, Mme. de Blayac will be extremely useful in getting Ponceludon in the King's good graces, but of course, he will have to sleep with her in return. Not that Ponceludon's arm needs particularly strong twisting, but he is, as it happens, truly in love with Mathilde (Judith Godeche), a fresh, lovely, smart and independent young girl in the provinces. Mathilde happens to be the daughter of Bellegarde (Jean Rochefort), Ponceludon's mentor, and on paper, she and Ponceludon make the perfect couple. So not only will Ponceludon have to negotiate the politics at Court, but he will have to choose between two vastly different women.
From the salons to the boudoirs, Ridicule looks ravishing, as it must, given its setting. But contrary to what some reviewers might have you believe, the film is much more than two hours of extravagant costumes and decor and bitchy aristocrats. For no matter how vacuous and unpleasant these courtiers are, their obsession with wit, almost to the point of fetishization, is still underlined by one essential thing: a genuine passion for the expressiveness of language. And that's something for the most part sorely missing from American culture and very much at the heart of Ridicule. Just listen to the short letter that Fanny Ardant's character writes to Ponceludon near the end of the film in order to win him back. Here, there is nothing barbed nor mean-spirited, but a masterful example of pure, beautiful language, whose velveteen elegance is matched only by its precise economy of words. Or look at another extraordinary sequence in which deaf-mutes show off to the skeptical Court the new invention of sign language. Asked to come up with some witty jeu de mot, they reply with their own jeu de geste (so to speak), which effectively has them in stitches. When the perplexed and indignant courtiers ask for an explanation of the hilarity, the deaf-mutes' teacher gleefully tells the audience that it is untranslatable. It's an inspired moment. |
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 Given the importance of language in the film, it seemed only appropriate (and lovely, too) to spend an afternoon chatting with Ridicule's screenwriter Rémi Waterhouse in his apartment in the western suburbs of Paris. I first asked him what the origin of the film was. Mr. Waterhouse responded that he was particularly influenced by Rosellini's The Rise of Louis XIV, though he was quick to add that Ridicule "is absolutely not an historical film in the mould, say, of Barry Lyndon. It's more like an imagined fable within historical parameters." Mr. Waterhouse had also read long ago the Memoires of the Countess of Boigne. He said: "The first part, the first 50 pages, were about her childhood at Court, essentially, the stories she heard her father recount. I was very surprised by what I read and I always said it should be the subject of a film. And then there was another quote which the Countess cites which inspired me. The Duke of Guines says it to his daughters: Young ladies, here, vice is of no consequence, but ridicule kills. And that is a Duke who, in principle, knows his way in the world. And he says it to his own daughters no less!" I wondered whether coining the phrase "a fetishization of language" wasn't overdoing it a bit. "No," Mr. Waterhouse stated. "One could, in fact, say that, because wit had come to have a certain value in and of itself. In a modern, bourgeois society like our own, competence has a higher value. But at that time, it didn't. For example, there was a letter received by the then Minister of War which said: 'This gentleman has a lot of spirit and wit. A regiment would do well in his hands.' Now that is very strange. What does wit have to do with military competence? If this witty gentlemen found himself on a battlefield commanding a regiment, it would have perhaps cost us a few battles."
I laughed and shivered at the same time. Which is precisely what you will do throughout much of Ridicule. It's a refreshingly sardonic and beautifully acted tonic for the more sentimental efforts already pouring out of Hollywood for the holiday season. I heartily recommend it. |
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