France, late XNUMXth century, two knights fight to the death for the love and honor of a woman. This, in a nutshell, the plot of The last duelRidley Scott's latest work. We must immediately state that it is the same director who proposed it right at his debut (1977). The duelists, based on a novel by Joseph Conrad, with which he won a Golden Lion at Cannes and a David di Donatello and therefore there was legitimate expectation for how he would deal with the subject after more than 40 years. Since then and up to the present day, Scott has given us pearls of absolute cinematic value: from Blade Runner passing through Thelma & Louise and Gladiator. In this case, the director takes up not only his previous work but has ventured once again with one of the topical places of cinema, history, literature but also of cultural anthropology: the armed confrontation between two contenders, one fatally doomed to fail. Just to keep your memory up to date let's remember a few precedents: Hector and Achilles in the Odyssey, passing through Shakespeare's Hamlet and arriving at the legendary duels in Sergio Leone's Western.
Further and necessary premise: Scott's hand with the camera is well educated, attentive and meticulous, always at the right point of vision. He manages to grasp the scenic movements, the lights, the traits of the characters and, not least, the choreographic (albeit digital) staging like few others. In particular, the attention to detail essential in this kind of film is of remarkable workmanship in a historical setting of great visual impact. However, all this is not enough. As far as the narration and the screenplay are concerned, one remains somewhat perplexed.
The plot (taken from a true story) develops along three floors: each of the protagonists tells his truth about a dramatic episode: the sexual violence used against the protagonist (Jodie Comer in the role of Marguerite de Carrouges). On the one hand, the legitimate husband (an almost anonymous Matt Damon in the guise of Jean de Carrouges) who agrees to make the story known despite the common morality adverse to making such episodes known. On the other, the evil aggressor (Adam Driver as Jacques Le Gris) who fully supports his innocence. And, finally, the main character disputed between the two men. Truth and falsehood confront each other first before the King who, not knowing how to administer justice as far as he is concerned, remits to the Duel of God, so-called because it left the resolution of the conflict to divine judgment.
There are all the ingredients to deal with a cinematographic story of great interest in the time of Politically Correct: not only the multiple truth and relative to the point of view of who tells it, but also love for the price of a castle, friendship at the price of noble title, justice at the price of more or less corrupt witnesses and the duel at the price of a judicial instrument. A doubt and some questions remain regarding a fundamental passage of the "legal debate" concerning the raped noblewoman where she lingers on a question to which all victims of outrage and violence are subjected: were they also participants, albeit unaware? The question is cruder and more direct, but it is the same one that the aggressors' defense lawyers address to the victims, sometimes implying their "participation". It is a topic of great importance that still affects a social and cultural passage not yet fully realized in contemporary society: the woman as a "private" object, victim of many godparents and masters who often abuse her as they please.
The Last Duel, from this point of view, leaves a sense of incompleteness, of untold, of omitted while relying for the most part on images alone which, as known, as such are not sufficient even if of excellent technical workmanship. Ridley Scott, especially in his "juvenile" phase, had instead accustomed us to products that were much richer in food for thought by skilfully mixing two fundamental ingredients: great scenographic effects and richness of content such as, precisely, the three films mentioned above. In this case, at his ripe old age (83), he appeared more inclined to market concessions, to the aesthetic form of the stills than to care for the screenplay. We have some doubts that The Last Duel will have the same position in the annals of cinema as some of his previous works.
