The French countryside, the French people, the French cities: all of it dazzles Marie Antionette.
But the man to whom she is meant to be married, Dauphin Louis XVI? Her heart doesn’t flutter for him.
The Austrian princess-turned-French nobility longs for more. She does not love her husband, even if he is in line to be the king of France someday. She longs for a true love story. And as she waits for that love, she’ll satiate her heartache by spending lavishly.
Her assigned guardian and Captain of the Royal Guards Regiment, a woman named Oscar, warns her about her excessive spending. It’s insensitive to the majority of the civilians who struggle to provide milk and bread in the crumbling economy. But Marie insists that her spending isn’t excessive—it’s generous, meant to reward those friendly to her family.
But Oscar hears the grumbling of a nation. And she knows that if Marie continues down the path she’s chosen, she’ll have to choose a side.
As Marie becomes more selfish and materialistic, Oscar struggles to continue supporting her. Oscar warns Marie that the rest of the country is starving and growing restless. She refuses Marie’s offer to raise her pay, telling her that the country cannot afford it. Oscar’s heart for the marginalized continues to grow, and she decides to leave her cushy position in the Royal Guard to join the citizen-facing French Guard to give her more opportunities to assist French civilians.
Oscar offers to sacrifice her life to save someone else. Others take big risks and give their lives to protect others, too.
A character named Count von Fersen says that God put Marie Antionette in his path for a reason. Marie says that the king’s authority comes from God. Oscar says that all humanity should be free under God.
The Catholic Church places a crown atop Louis XVI’s head. Someone offers prayers for another person. A man and woman embrace in heaven.
We see depictions of winged baby angels. There’s a reference to Icarus. Someone describes a woman’s beauty “as if the goddess of love had bathed you in her light.” In a song, Oscar sings about living as a “child of Mars, the god of war.” One character says that she wants to “run in tandem” with a man like “Castor and Pollux in Gemini.” We briefly see a depiction of a Pegasus.
Someone sings, “May our souls bloom in love/ … in the face of destiny.”
Many fans of The Rose of Versailles have claimed that a romantic longing connects Marie and Oscar—something that may be more apparent in the manga. In the film, we see Marie mistake Oscar for a man, calling her attractive. She also says that if Oscar was a man, she would likely be in love with her. However, beyond those moments, The Rose of Versailles gives both Marie and Oscar strong romantic arcs with men.
Marie struggles in her marriage to Louis XVI, and she begins an affair with Count von Fersen. She and von Fersen kiss, and commoners whisper that von Fersen is Marie’s lover. Oscar, for her part, slowly recognizes her romantic feelings for her childhood friend, André. Before a battle, the two of them spend a night together, passionately kissing. It’s evident that they’re unclothed and implied more occurs, but we don’t see anything critical.
Still, Oscar certainly has an intentionally androgynous look. Forced by her father into a life of military service to appease his desire to have a “son” succeed him, Oscar lives a life typical of a man (right down to having a male name). And because of her position, uniform and petite figure, many people mistake her to be a man until they’re informed otherwise.
For instance, when one man expresses confusion as to why Oscar cannot strip down in front of him to receive medical attention (thinking Oscar is a man like him), he’s quickly chased away for the implications of his innocent question.
A song sings of how masquerade balls are about “love and immorality/ … a fun game of depravity.”
When the French citizens eventually do revolt, the violence results in many dozens of deaths. We see a man stabbed, and plenty of people—soldiers and citizens—die from gunshot wounds or cannon fire. We see other bodies, slumped over with bloodstains. And we watch as a couple of people cough up blood following injuries.
A man prepares to execute a young boy for theft before being stopped. Two people are knocked unconscious after jumping off galloping horses. Someone allegedly attempts to poison a woman. Oscar fights a few men with her fists. André gets hit on the head with a wooden plank, causing heavy bleeding—and he eventually loses sight in an eye. A man receives a cut on his hand and face during a spar. Someone gets hit with a rock.
In this English-dubbed version of the film, we hear one use of “d–n,” and we hear two instances of “b–tard” and “h—” each. God’s name is used in vain twice. Someone tells another person to “go to h—.”
People drink wine and champagne. An intoxicated man sleeps in an alley.
A central theme in the film is that everyone should be allowed to follow their heart. However, this message reveals the contradiction within itself, as the hearts of the French citizens become diametrically opposed to the hearts of the French nobles. And as the French nobles “follow their hearts” en route to lavish meals and extravagant spending, the French citizens “follow their hearts” by slaying the royalty. So despite the nice-sounding sentiment, it’s evident that “following your heart” leads to just as much strife as not indulging one’s desires.
A woman throws waste into the street below.
The Rose of Versailles comes more than 50 years after its original manga release. And it generally covers the same story—albeit a bit more condensed. It’s a story that somewhat follows a few notable events and people from the French Revolution while also throwing in some fiction of its own: most notably, the very existence of Oscar herself.
I won’t say it’s strange to intersperse a movie about the French Revolution with musical numbers, since Les Misérables already got around to doing that. But I will confess that the frequency and modern pop sound of the songs was rather jarring when juxtaposed against the rest of the subject matter. Also strange was the film’s gradual transition away from Marie’s position as a central character: By the end of the movie, we nearly forget she was even in this thing.
Finally, while some fans of The Rose of Versailles allege that there’s romantic attraction between the female Oscar and Marie, we don’t see that here. Instead, both women find love with a man. And any seeming allusions to same-sex attraction can be far more easily interpreted as the affection between two close friends.
Otherwise, this animated reimagining of the French Revolution comes with the violence you’d expect from that moment of history, some light swearing and a fade-away sex scene.
Kennedy Unthank studied journalism at the University of Missouri. He knew he wanted to write for a living when he won a contest for “best fantasy story” while in the 4th grade. What he didn’t know at the time, however, was that he was the only person to submit a story. Regardless, the seed was planted. Kennedy collects and plays board games in his free time, and he loves to talk about biblical apologetics. He’s also an avid cook. He thinks the ending of Lost “wasn’t that bad.”
