I knew this movie existed back then, but I did not know it was in English, I assumed as a French production it would have been in French. That assumption isn't why I didn't watch it right away, I watched the Anime in Japanese with Subs and already had experience watching movies in French thanks to my BlackCoatPress interests (which was itself a factor in why this was one of the first Anime I watched when I decided to start truly diving into Anime).
What I had also assumed was that it would be pretty much impossible for me to find to watch without spending a lot of money just like most old French movies based on Paul Feval, Ponson du Terril and Eugene Sue novels. However recent events on Twitter had brought knowledge of where to watch it to my attention.
I consider the movie overall good, but in a unique way.
Generally my advice is to watch adaptations before the source material so comparisons won't constantly be bothering you, if the source material is better then you'll have saved the better experience for last.
In this case however the main strength of the film is the acting. Very little of it is any major deviation from the source material, but it's very condensed, the Anime is 40 episodes while the runtime of this movie is equivalent to the runtime of 6 episodes. I have a feeling this movie will have a very limited appeal to viewers who don't already know the fullness of the Anime's story-line, to them it won't really stand on it's own at all.
But for those of us who have the ablity to put it in context what is adapted looks as good as this possibly ever could look in live action, I certainly don't trust the trends of historical fiction in modern Hollywood to aesthetically do this Anime justice.
As I said the strongest point of the film is the acting. Chiefly Lady Oscar herself played by Catriona MacColl. I read on Wikipedia some critics thought she wasn't Androgynous enough, and I think that misses the point. Lady Oscar in the Anime does not look like Haruka Tenoh or a stereotypical Butch Lesbian. I feel like what the people making that criticism wanted is exactly what I would hate about how Hollywood would probably do it today. Lady Oscar is a very feminine woman beneath that military uniform.
In fandom it has often been Trans Masculine fans who seek project onto Lady Oscar, but the plot to me really makes her more allegorically related to a Frans Femme, she's presenting masculine because she was raised that way not in-spite of how she was raised. But that could be my own personal bias speaking, as someone assigned male at birth currently questioning their gender identity.
At some points the film oddly felt like a Hammer film. But I should clarify what I mean by that, Hammer did make more then just Horror, they also made odd little limited budget historical films sometimes. The actor playing Andre sounded kinda like several of Hammer's random Junior Leads (often named Paul) but according to Wikipedia he's not one of them.
The Anime is in my opinion the best fictionalization of this time period I've seen thus far. What it does get wrong are mistakes by no means unique to this franchise, like making Robespierre a leader of the Revolutionaries a lot sooner then he actually was. This film is about the same in historical accuracy but is generally more enjoyable to watch as just Lady Oscar's story then the time period in general. Which is shown by comparing the titles, Lady Oscar is the title character of the movie but the Anime's title character is technically Marie Antoinette.
The only thing I was truly disappointed by about the film was the ending. So now I shall fully enter spoiler territory.
Spoiler Warning!!!!!
In the Anime Andre and Oscar are both dead by the end, I generally prefer happier endings but this premise was about making these made up characters to be Martyrs of The Revolution.
An adaptation that changed it so both survived I could conceivably get behind. But this film played off much of it's final act as being about getting them together to then just randomly kill him off while leaving Oscar alone and seemingly not even aware of what happened.
It's not just that Ocsar is alive at the end, it's chiefly that she's no longer directly involved in the taking of the Bastille at all. In the Anime that's what her entire Arc was building towards.
At some points the film oddly felt like a Hammer film. But I should clarify what I mean by that, Hammer did make more then just Horror, they also made odd little limited budget historical films sometimes. The actor playing Andre sounded kinda like several of Hammer's random Junior Leads (often named Paul) but according to Wikipedia he's not one of them.
The Anime is in my opinion the best fictionalization of this time period I've seen thus far. What it does get wrong are mistakes by no means unique to this franchise, like making Robespierre a leader of the Revolutionaries a lot sooner then he actually was. This film is about the same in historical accuracy but is generally more enjoyable to watch as just Lady Oscar's story then the time period in general. Which is shown by comparing the titles, Lady Oscar is the title character of the movie but the Anime's title character is technically Marie Antoinette.
The only thing I was truly disappointed by about the film was the ending. So now I shall fully enter spoiler territory.
Spoiler Warning!!!!!
In the Anime Andre and Oscar are both dead by the end, I generally prefer happier endings but this premise was about making these made up characters to be Martyrs of The Revolution.
An adaptation that changed it so both survived I could conceivably get behind. But this film played off much of it's final act as being about getting them together to then just randomly kill him off while leaving Oscar alone and seemingly not even aware of what happened.
It's not just that Ocsar is alive at the end, it's chiefly that she's no longer directly involved in the taking of the Bastille at all. In the Anime that's what her entire Arc was building towards.
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