The Queen’s Game : portrait of a queen on fire
Four years after winning the Un certain Regard award for his film The invisible life of Eurídice Gusmãodirector Karim Aïnouz returned to the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, this time in competition, with his new feature film The Queen’s Game (Burning ember in the original version) brought by Alicia Vikander and Jude Law. Even if it wasn’t awarded, the feature film still had its effect…
Adapted from the novel The Queen’s Gambit by Elizabeth Fremantle published in 2013, the film is set in the 16th century, in bloody Tudor England. Catherine Parr, sixth and last wife of King Henry VIII, was appointed queen regent during the king’s military campaigns.
With this temporary role, he attempts to influence the court a future based on his Protestant beliefs. Upon her return, the King, increasingly paranoid and ill, accuses his wife’s childhood friend of betrayal and sends her to the stake. Horrified and secretly pained, Catherine fights for her survival, where the slightest misstep could lead to her execution while she dreams only of a kingdom without tyranny.
The life and reign of King Henry VIII has already been brought to the screen numerous times and the best-known variation is the series The Tudorsbroadcast from 2007 to 2010. For connoisseurs, The Queen’s Game resumes the events that appeared in the last two episodes of the series and therefore recounts the last moments of Henry VIII.
Check mate
A dark figure, Catherine Parr nevertheless had a great influence on the history of England. During the three months of absence of Henry VIII, who left for France for military operations, she was like this governed the country and he shouldered his royal duties with great strength of character and courage. This is exactly what Karim Aïnouz wanted to highlight in the film The Queen’s Game which turns out to be a touching tribute to this great historical figurethat despite threats to her life, she never stopped believing in her beliefs, and knew how, like a formidable chess player, to move her pawns to achieve her goals.
A survival in the mysteries of History
Although he only appears on the screen late, the sinister shadow of Henry VIII immediately imposes itself, insidiously, from the first images of the film, in particular through his numerous motherless children, all executed or repudiated by order of the King, a real Bluebeard from English royal history. Obsessed with her legacy, Henry VIII measured his wife’s worth only by her ability to provide him with an heir. Thereby, as Catherine’s spirit rises again, constantly brings her back to her status as a woman through her body. This is why yet another abortion would seem to condemn her forever.
So, when this event happens, the feature film moves into another dimension, that of survival historical which sometimes looks towards horror. In fact, in addition to the masterful presence of Jude Law, who brilliantly embodies the figure of the ogre decaying from within, Karim Aïnouz makes him a nightmare creature, an insatiable, seemingly invincible bogeyman. With every additional second of the king’s life, it is Catherine’s that shrinks, until a final face-to-face, which she could have been suffocating if we had not known the outcome in advance.
In this feature film in which we vibrate with anger next to this great heroine, it is difficult not to see a mirror of our current society, where the place of women and their freedom are constantly questioned. Behind the superb cinematography of the film signed Hlève Louvard where every shot seems to come from a 16th century painting, the subject of the film is, for its part, decidedly current.
The Queen’s Game by Karim Aïnouz, in theaters from March 27, 2024. Above is the trailer. The film premiered at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival and the 2023 Deauville Film Festival.
Source: Cine Serie
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