The King Is Dancing

2000
6.9| 1h55m| NA| en| More Info
Released: 06 December 2000 Released
Producted By: France 2 Cinéma
Country: Germany
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Info

Louis XIV, the French sun-king has two passions, establishing absolute rule over the realm -after decades of religious/civil wars- by divine right and artistic brilliancy as a dancer

Genre

Drama, History, Music

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Director

Gérard Corbiau

Production Companies

France 2 Cinéma

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The King Is Dancing Audience Reviews

GazerRise Fantastic!
Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews
Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.
Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.
Armand images. costumes. acting. music. extraordinary show, Baroque explosion. and little more. because the force of Magimel to create a splendid Louis XIV is central clue. the king is not only a character but an extraordinary scene. because, out of accuracy of facts, the spirit of a past page is all- mighty. colors, intrigues, map of a war. and many seductive nuances of a metamorphose. nothing else. only a form of joy without precise definition. because , like each good films, it is a mixture between fable, parable and fairy tale. great difference - the shadows as bones of light of power conquest. art - only instrument. the best. or only step for a not ending dance.
dbdumonteil This movie focuses on one side of Louis the fourteenth's reign:the patron Sun King.All the best artists who were living at the time were working for the King,from the painters to the musicians to the chefs (see "Vatel" whom Louis stole from Fouquet).Although a lot of famous historic characters appear (Colbert,Louvois,La Vallière,Maintenon),only five emerge :the threesome KIng/Lulli/Molière and ,at the beginning, two silhouettes ,the Queen mother,Anne d'Autriche ,and the king's cousin,Conti.The king,played with talent by Benoit Magimel,who shows himself a first-class dancer ,is not exactly the king we find in history books:okay,he rules alone,but a lot of time is given over to arts ..in the first part of his reign,the king was first a soldier :the fine arts connoisseur came only second.(music,dance,gardens...).Lulli (or Lully depending on whom you ask)was an Italian,so it's very surprising -and it's the main flaw of the whole film- he speaks without the slightest accent.Of course,and probably because c'est à la mode,the director doesn't pass over Lully's homosexuality but he does not lay great stress on it,preferring to give music more than its due:Lully's was majestic and magnificent,the KIng Music par excellence.Tcheky Kario shines as Molière and gives what will probably be his lifetime role.A jaded and coughing actor/playwright/director whose genius was still brilliant,he had to cope with sanctimonious persons (les dévôts de la compagnie du Saint-Sacrement)and leter with Lully's jealousy.The last Lully -Molière collaboration,"le bourgeois gentilhomme" (arguably Molière's funniest work),made Molière a visionary who was beginning to see theater as a complete show .The Turkish ceremony " in "le bourgeois gentilhomme" and its celebrated menuet (sadly not included in the film) were forerunners of the musicals.But Lully,who played the "Mufti" in the play ,felt like a buffoon and feared that the king might favor Molière over him.Lully wanted to be a king and" a king ain't satisfied till he owns everything "as Bruce Springsteen sings ,so the dancer became a wolf .Molière was not his one victim :he actually put down all his rivals and had a complete stranglehold on the king's music.Some users complain about Courbiau's baroque style:since at least one third of the time is dedicated to arts ,what's the point of being realist and austere ?We're not dealing with Rossellini directing "la prise du pouvoir par LOuis XIV",dash it! Okay ,some sequences are ponderous -Molière's death on stage while playing "le malade imaginaire" did not need this dancers dressed up as skeletons,for instance.But if cinema means change of scenery,"le roi danse" pulls it off with gusto.
Benoît A. Racine (benoit-3) The director's motto, judging from his body of work so far, seems to be: "You don't like history, kids? No problem, I hate it too! But I have ways of making you watch just the same!" This is a prime example of an over-the-top Mexican telenovela trying to pass for what it's not, i.e. an 'historical' epic. It describes Louis the XIVth's changing allegiances between Molière, the court dramatist, and Lully, the court composer, as a series of off-colour vignettes with a vaguely homosexual subtext. No expense is spared to gross out the spectator at every turn: a plethora of endless scenes involving various body fluids are interspersed between sundry bloody surgical emergencies (a staple of every soap-opera) and scenery-chewing, bodice-ripping drag-queen-on-a-rampage mad scenes. This is truly cinema by hairdressers for hairdressers. And it has nothing whatsoever to do with history. At no point in the whole film is the spectator given to even timidly wonder what makes a prince a king, a dramatist a great playwright and a musician a genius. The events depicted in "Le Roi danse" have been elaborated brilliantly in at least half a dozen films and TV series by directors as diverse as Rossellini and Ariane Mnouchkine during the past 50 years. This is not one of these films. Watch this film, by all means,if you really, really enjoyed the extreme close-up of Haendel squashing a bug with the tip of his walking-stick in "Farinelli". Otherwise, save your money, go for a walk, buy a book, listen to a record, get some culture in. Even "Moulin Rouge!" is marginally less embarrassing than this piece of barocaca!
dbchae Le roi danse is easily one of the worst movies that I have ever seen in my entire life. An inner voice kept telling me to get up and leave, but, unfortunately, I didn't listen to it as I kept thinking, "It simply cannot be this bad." Well, it was. Offhand, I can hardly imagine a bigger waste of two hours that this film.