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The
King's Whore
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The King's Whore is a lavish co-production with seemingly a lot going for it. The classically melodramatic script – involving an obsessed king (Timothy Dalton) and the woman he enslaves (Valeria Golino) – is credited to Daniel Vigne (The Return of Martin Guerre , 1982), Frederic Raphael (Eyes Wide Shut, 1999) and veteran Austrian director Axel Corti. The film makes room for a feminist perspective, a healthy interest in the various sanctioned perversions of seventeenth century France, and a complex interweaving of passion and power. Unfortunately, it quickly collapses under the weight of its own stateliness, not to mention all those beautifully mounted sets, costumes and wigs. The melodrama loses its nerve the moment that Corti withdraws sympathy from the entrapped heroine – who is, after all, a rebel with a just cause – and tries to redirect it towards the teary-eyed, hopelessly romantic king. Watch out: it's another maudlin apologia for a villainous, patriarchal male. © Adrian Martin October 1993 |
