cinehunch
A FILM WORTH A CLOSER LOOKTHE FEATURE PRESENTATION
IF THIS ONE STAYED WITH YOU
Keep the feeling.
SIMILAR PICKS / A PERSONAL CONNECTION
01
Why this pick
Its plague-stricken Thirty Years’ War setting shares Queen Margot’s sense of Europe collapsing into sectarian violence, with survival and compromised loyalties played in a grim, tactile historical register.
02
Why this pick
Another ravishingly physical vision of the French Wars of Religion, balancing courtly desire, political marriage and sudden brutality around a woman constrained by dynastic power.
03
Why this pick
It turns civil conflict into feverish, lyrical historical drama: threatened civilians, shifting allegiances and violent eruptions carry an emotional grandeur akin to Chéreau’s epic intensity.
04
Why this pick
For the intimate side of Queen Margot: a forbidden attachment inside a hostile royal court, where private longing and reformist politics become perilously inseparable.
05
Why this pick
Its royal palace is a battlefield of appetite, illness and manipulation. Though far more acidic and stylised, it offers similarly ruthless court power dynamics led by formidable women.
Finding the atmosphere, tension and little details that made this one stay with you.
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01 / THE STORY
During the late 16th century, Catholics and Protestant Huguenots are fighting over political control of France, which is ruled by the neurotic, hypochondriac Charles IX of France (Jean-Hugues Anglade), and his mother, Catherine de' Medici (Virna Lisi), a scheming power player. Catherine decides to make an overture of goodwill by offering up her daughter Margaret of Valois (Isabelle Adjani) in marriage to Henry IV of France (Daniel Auteuil), a prominent Huguenot and Kingdom of Navarre, although she also schemes to bring about the notorious St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre of 1572, when thousands of Protestants are slaughtered. The marriage goes forward but Margot, who does not love Henri, begins a passionate affair with the soldier Joseph Boniface de La Môle (Vincent Pérez), also a Protestant from a well-to-do family. Murders by poisoning follow, as court intrigues multiply and Queen Catherine's villainous plotting to place her son the Duke of Anjou (Pascal Greggory) on the throne threatens the lives of La Môle, Margot and Henri of Navarre. A book with pages painted with arsenic is intended for Henri but instead causes the slow, agonizing death of King Charles. Henri escapes to Navarre and sends La Môle to fetch Margot, but Guise apprehends him. La Môle is beheaded in the Bastille before Margot can save him, and King Charles finally dies. Margot escapes carrying La Môle's embalmed head as Anjou is proclaimed King of France as Henry III of France.
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02 / FACES IN THE FRAME
Margot
Henri de Navarre
Charles IX
La Môle
Catherine de Médicis
Henriette de Nevers
Anjou
Coconnas
