Ridley Scott's visually striking and highly disquieting new film "The Last Duel" is a based-on-fact drama derived from Eric Jager’s 2004 book, “The Last Duel: A True Story of Trial by Combat in Medieval France,” the historical drama of France’s last government-sanctioned trial by combat, held between Jean de Carroughes, a celebrated knight and war hero and his friend-turned enemy, Jacques Le Gris, a politically connected and duplicitous court noble.
A bitter and agonizing tale of a loveless marriage and bitter male rivalry, rape, legal and political intrigue and a vicious duel to the death. A tale set in a barbarous age which in some respects bears a disturbing resemblance to our own, supposedly enlightened age.
Three stories in one, the film tells the same sequence of events from three perspectives: Carrouges, Le Gris, and Marguerite de Carroughes, the heroine of the film, whose version of the story is presented as the truth. Visually potent, the film transports us through war, poverty and a dark, gritty age.
Jean de Carroughes is depicted as a brutal man, a primitive more at home on the battlefield than at court. His best friend Jacques Le Gris, is a suave, charming political manipulator who's outwardly cultured manner hides a brutal and evil nature. His gangster-like methods of rent collection gain him favor with his superiors, land, power and all the women he desires (assuming his appetite in that area can ever be satisfied.) A predator in every respect, he advances while Carroughes is left deprived and embittered, the rivalry between them developing quickly into hatred.
The key object of contention between them is Margueritte, a wife Carroughes brutishly treats like a head of stock. In a time when women were regarded as property, Margueritte is expected to perform her wifely duty and lie through her teeth in saying she enjoys her husband's ape-like sexual performance. She notices Le Gris noticing her, and at his first opportunity, he forces himself upon her. In a strictly factual sense, Le Gris' version of the act itself and Margueritte's are virtually identical; it's the textures that differ. To him, it's a game of pursuit that always characterizes sex. For her, it's torture and violence. When she urgently begs him to stop, her face twisted in anguish, he continues remorselessly to climax. Le Gris' version of reality claims an affair; Margueritte's does not.
Upon learning of the rape, Carroughes' reaction is one of personal wrong; the final attack of his rival upon him, personally. The first thing he does is unbuckle his pants and order his wife to submit to him, unmindful of her post-traumatic pain, insisting Le Gris will not be the last man to have his trophy wife. For, he knows Margueritte insists upon publicly accusing her rapist and that she can be put savagely to death by public flaying and immolation if her account is not believed.
What follows is timelessly familiar. Margueritte's best friend turns her back on her, disbelieving her account. Her unsympathetic mother-in-law tells her she should have kept her mouth shut, to avoid scandal, as is any woman's duty, rape described as a normal fact of life that women simply have to learn to live with. Le Gris' powerful friends rally around him. The church publicly humiliates Margueritte in court, asking her to publicly swear she has achieved orgasm with her husband. Margueritte's humiliation is compounded by the fact she is pregnant with her rapist's child. All-too-familiar pseudo-scientific claims that rape cannot result in pregnancy are leveled against her. The misogynistic core of the patriarchal culture is laid bare in the statement by a church official that this is not a case of a crime against a woman; this is a property crime against her husband.
Finally, Carroughes defends his honor by invoking the right of a sanctioned duel to the death with Le Gris. This barbaric ritual is expected to reveal God's will in the survival of the righteous. If Carroughes loses the duel, it means Margueritte lied and will be put to death. The duel itself, beginning with a joust and culminating in a vicious hand-to-hand struggle is like something out of a Roman gladiatorial match, the spectators...including the king himself...gleefully cheering on the slaughter. Neither combatant has earned our sympathy, but we must root for Carroughes, the suspense building as Margueritte's life depends on his victory. She sits in a spectator/defendant's box, her ankles in shackles, tears in her eyes as she watches the match play out. Visceral brutality rivaling Gibson's "Passion" culminates in a feast of blood and gore that takes the brutality and senselessness of the age to its devastating climax. Carroughes emerges victorious, saves Margueritte's life and proudly walks off with her surrounded by cheering crowds; the traditional ending of classic patriarchal fantasy. But, that is only what's on the surface. The closing scene shows Margueritte alone in a sunlit garden with her beloved baby son, her husband nowhere to be seen. The closing credits tell us he is later killed in battle and Margueritte goes on alone, never to remarry. The true victory is hers, not his.
The numerous rape scenes in this film were, in my opinion excessive. But, its message was clear and spared us nothing. The movie's limited success in box office sales suggests that many may dismiss it as yet another Hollywood "message" movie. Historians may quarrel over its accuracy and critics may pan its social preachiness. But, on a very basic level, its harsh truths are undeniable. A system which claims to hold Christ at its heart, like any other patriarchal culture holds at its true core an evil born of an underlying hatred of women and all the deceptive illusions it spawns.
