最后的决斗

Truth does not matter, yet still, here I speak out my part of the truth.

‘The Last Duel’, in scenes and settings most epic and extravagant; in plots and dialogues most clear and concise; in structure and storyline most enticing and enlightening; it renews and re-discloses the same story and characters every once in about a half hour, tries its best to present a fully-rounded historical record - the last duel in history.

No need to repeat the whole plot, as anyone after watching it will certainly gain a basic understanding of the event. Here I only intend to state my personal interpretation of the movie.

For me, what Jean kills in Jacques in the duel is not merely Jacques himself and the disgrace Jacques brings on him over matters of court and the rape of wife, he also kills, for Marguerite, the tad of immoral and unwifely sense of anomaly she feels in their marriage and in herself from time to time. Jean also knows it, that’s why when he asks Jacques for a confession when he has the total upper hand at the end of the duel and when he receives yet another denial from Jacques, he says that then you have to die. He has to kill Jacques because he has to defend himself, that’s no doubt, but he also needs to defend his wife’s innocence, integrity and decency if they don’t exist, especially if they don’t exist, and by therefore doing, further establishes himself.

As for Marguerite, from the looks on her face when she has intercourses with her husband, she doesn’t look very much in pleasure, yet she dares not to say so as it would be deemed unfaithful or immoral. So, albeit her unhappiness, her knowing so well that Jean just wants from her more than anything else a son, she remains loyal and dutiful as women are instructed to behave at the time. Maybe this causes her melancholy and forbids her a child in the first five prime years of their marriage.

And while she has every right to admit the handsomeness of another man other than her own husband, she is in reality condemned to do so. But as is well said in scripts that ‘it’s hard for any man not to fall in love with two women at the same time, so it is for a woman not to simultaneously love two men’, and from our own experiences, we do intend to fall for others, more times more than one at the same time, which is perfectly natural but reproachable. Thus, Marguerite knows what’s right and rejects another fall for another presumptuous man after acknowledging his charm. She vigilantly guards against her own womanly doctrines and duties, which trap her, sadden her, dull her life and make her miserable. Yet, she is a righteous person, courageous also, in defending herself, her truth, her right, her name, and her reputation as it is dictated right and moral by the then social contexts and conventions, albeit they contradict her real beliefs and preferences. She is caught in a double bind, as all women were and are.

As an intelligent woman, beautiful, learned and more than capable, it is unimaginable for her to be trapped with a man like Jean or any man whatsoever of her time. But she behaves duly according to the time and era she lives in, only with much more courage and fortitude than other women. And she uses her hushand’s hands to kill that part of rebellion and out-of-placeness inside her, she uses his hands to kill the symbol of one bind over her, but soon entices her in another different bind, a choice she knows well of its consequences but a choice she makes nonetheless. For that’s the best one she can choose for at the time, though she doesn’t look happy either, when the spposed justice and truth wins the duel, ‘cause it’s won at the price of her forever submission and compliance to her commanding husband and no one else.

A very thought-provoking movie, it hurtles me deep into thought about what a woman really should be doing and pursuing. Because so far at all times, she doesn’t have a perfect truth that belongs to herself, as she is forever trying to figure out her own footing in a man’s world and behaves accordingly, and most of the time, behaves out of herself.