Video & On Demand - The Death of Louis XIV DVD & Download
August 1715. After going for a walk, Louis XIV feels a pain in his leg. The next days, the king keeps fulfilling his duties and obligations, but his sleep is troubled and he has a serious fever. He barely eats and weakens increasingly. This is the start of the slow agony of the greatest King of France from gangrene, surrounded by his doctors and closest advisors, speaking in frantic, whispered tones about their options, in an era in which little is known of such illnesses.
Albert Serra's new film, The Death of Louis XIV, is an adaptation of the Duc de Saint-Simon’s memoirs, starring Jean-Pierre Léaud as the Sun-King. The cult actor, who worked with all major directors from the Nouvelle Vague after being discovered in Truffaut's The 400 Blows, plays the dying king who can barely move from his bed in the Château de Versailles. His relatives and his closest counsellors come in turns at his bedside, but he attends only a few meetings and can barely rule his kingdom. His secret wife Madame de Maintenon, and his doctor Fagon dread his last breath and try to hide it from the public, to preserve the future of France. Shot in rich colour with extraordinary lighting, Jean-Pierre Léaud, in his costume, hair and poses, fully embodies the last few days of the longest serving king of France, who, with his seventy two years in power, changed the face of the monarchy and of France.
Cannes Film Festival, Official Selection, Special Screening
Best Film, International Competition, Jerusalem Film Festival
London Film Festival 2016, 'Dare'
Born in Banyoles in 1975, Albert Serra is a Catalan artist and director. Having studied philosophy and literature, he wrote plays and produced different video works. He gained an international recognition with his first feature film, Honor de Cavalleria (2006), a free adaptation of Don Quijote played by non-professional actors from his village. For his second film, Birdsong (Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight 2008), Serra took inspiration in a traditional Catalan Christmas song, El cant dels ocells, and worked with the same group of people to tell the story of the Three Wise Men who golled their guiding star to Jesus. In 2013, the Centre Pompidou in Paris organized a full retrospective and gave him a carte blanche. The same year, he received the Golden Leopard in Locarno for his film Story of my Death, inspired by Casanova’s memoirs. In 2015 he was invited to show work at the Venice Biennale, in the Catalan Pavillion, and he also had a full retrospective of his films at Tate Modern.
The Death of Louis XIV, his new film starring Jean-Pierre Léaud as the Sun King, was presented in the Official Selection of Cannes Film Festival 2016 to warm critical and public applause.
Feature-length films
The Death of Louis XIV (2016)Story of my Death (2013) (Festival del Film Locarno – Golden Leopard)
El Cant dels ocells (2011) Birdsong (2008) (Cannes Directors’ Fortnight)
Honor de Cavalleria (2006)
Shorts
Cuba Libre (short, 2013)Le Seigneur a fait pour moi des merveilles (short, 2011)
Lectura d’un poema (short, 2010)
Bauca (short, 2009)
L’alto Arrigo (short, 2008)Russia (short, 2007)
Sant Pere de Rodes (short, 2006)
Super 8 (short, 2006), co-directed with Christophe Farnarier
Crespia (short, 2003)
CAST |
|
Louis XIV |
Jean-Pierre Léaud |
Fagon |
Patrick d’Assumçao |
Blouin |
Marc Susini |
Mme de Maintenon |
Irène Silvagni |
Maréchal |
Bernard Belin |
Père Le Tellier |
Jacques Henric |
Le Brun |
Vicenç Altaió |
CREW |
|
Director |
Albert Serra |
Screenplay |
Albert Serra & Thierry Lounas |
Photography |
Jonathan Ricquebourg |
Camera |
Julien Hogert, Artur Tort |
Sound |
Jordi Ribas & Anne Dupouy |
Editing |
Ariadna Ribas, Artur Tort, Albert Serra |
Music |
Marc Verdaguer |
Visual Effects |
André Rosado, Xavier Pérez |
Production designer |
Sebastian Vogler |
Costumes |
Nina Avramovic |
Hair |
Antoine Mancini |
Assistant Director |
Maïa Difallah |
Producers |
Thierry Lounas, Albert Serra Joaquim Sapinho, Claire Bonnefoy |
Executive Producers |
Claire Bonnefoy, Montse Triola |
Production Manager |
Sandra Figueiredo |
Produced by |
Capricci Production |
In coproduction with |
Rosa Filmes, Andergraun Films, Bobi Lux |
With the support of |
Région Aquitaine Limousin Poutou-charentes |
Région Des Pays De La Loire, Département de la Dordogne |
|
In partnership with |
Le CNC, Républica Portuguesa - Cultura, ICA, Instituto do Cinema e do Audiovisual |
Institut Català de les Empreses Culturals |
|
With the participation of |
Agence Régionale Ecla, Arte Cofinova 12, Ciné+, Kino Filmes |
Rtp Rádio e Televisâo Portuguesa and Televisió de Catalunya |
|
115 minutes Certificate 12A |
★★★★★
'Jean-Pierre Léaud gives the performance of his career in this powerful, intimate and moving account of the French king’s final days…quietly amazing.'
Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian'This uncompromising film is one of the year's best.'
Erika Balsom, Sight & Sound
★★★★
'A film that is uncompromising, challenging and deeply felt.'
Allan Hunter, The List
★★★★★
'Léaud’s finely nuanced performance is miraculous and possibly one of his most self-reflexive (which is saying something). And don’t you dare leave the cinema before the sublime closing line..'
David Jenkins, Little White Lies★★★★
'Some kind of extraordinary achievement...hypnotic grandeur.'
Nigel Andews, The Financial Times
★★★★
'This daring micro-budget historical drama, built around the still captivating presence of seventy-something Jean-Pierre Léaud.'
Trevor Johnston, Time Out'Hypnotic and gorgeous.'
Ed Lawrenson, The Big Issue
'A strong contender for film of the year'
Matt Thrift, Little White Lies
'Albert Serra’s rich, mournful film...Our enduring memory of the teenage Léaud’s face from The 400 Blows burnishes the film’s poignancy.
Guy Lodge, The Observer DVD review
'Comedy is probably not the right word – and satire not much more appropriate – but the stylised and sycophantic attentions are memorable.' Tom Birchenough, The Arts Desk DVD review
'...a mesmerizing elegy from the Spanish director Albert Serra'
Manohla Dargis, The New York Times
'The most remarkable sight here is the Sun King, Louis XIV himself, played in an extraordinary performance by the French film legend Jean-Pierre Léaud.'
Justin Chang, The Los Angeles Times
'With The Death of Louis XIV, Albert Serra has produced one of the year’s most exquisite and visually rewarding pieces of cinema, fusing magnificent opulence and searing realism in effortless style.' The Arts Shelf
'Much as certain novels can be described as page-turners, this film is incontestably a frame-turner, and the mystery of figuring out why this is so comprises only part of its fascination. Léaud’s exquisite and convincing minimalist performance is only one aspect of this concentration.'
Jonathan Rosenbaum, Film Comment (half-way down)
'Six decades after he broke out with The 400 Blows, Cannes’ favourite son Jean-Pierre Léaud plays out the dying of the Sun King in a stately, majestic study of flesh and emblems from Catalonia’s Albert Serra: surely the most beautiful film at Cannes 2016.'
Jonathan Romney, Sight and Sound
'Has a riveting performance at its heart.'
Glenn Kenny, The New York Times
'The Death of Louis XIV, a dream pairing between Albert Serra, contemporary cinema’s great time traveler, and the one and only Jean-Pierre Léaud. The aged avatar of the nouvelle vague plays the extravagantly wigged Sun King in his final days, slowly succumbing to gangrene in his bedchamber, surrounded by devoted servants and pets and a retinue of hopeless doctors. With its hypnotic interplay of shadows and candlelight, Louis XIV provided some of the festival’s most ravishing images...'
Dennis Lim, Artforum
'The film simply looks stunning... Serra here opts for a painterly approach that combines a certain realism (if also an enormous opulence) in costumes, wigs and furniture with a rich, painterly look full of flickering candles and enveloping shadows. The light is literally dying in Jonathan Ricquebourg’s richly textured cinematography, while Sebastian Vogler’s production design is an impressively coordinated assembly of red and gold velvets, silks and brocades that, despite being no-doubt the most luxurious in the kingdom, do nothing to alleviate the ruler’s pain. The extravagant wigs, which flank Louis’s increasingly hollow features, are similarly overflowing in an unnatural way that contrasts with the banality and nakedness of the person slowly dying underneath them.'
Boyd van Hoeij, The Hollywood Reporter
'As darkly funny as it is moving…Léaud delivers a remarkable performance that concerns matters both grimly physical and dauntingly abstract. We see a body in decay but also sense the depletion of power, the evacuation of life. The Death of Louis XIV, winner of this year’s Prix Jean Vigo, is Serra’s most classical film as well as the clearest expression of his career project.'
Dennis Lim, Film Comment
'Catalan director Albert Serra’s film has a documentary-like authenticity, matching the unblinking instincts of a modern reality
television series with the visual allure of the old masters..., Serra has also found his perfect Louis in Jean-Pierre Leaud... Leaud plays with a weary indomitability, determined to carry on, gracious and dignified in his terrible suffering... It is easily the actor’s best role and most noteworthy performance in some time.'
Allan Hunter, Screen International
Download Pressbook
Trailer on Youtube
Trailer on Vimeo (can be downloaded)
Download high res poster jpg
Trailer as full size Pro res
Read an interview with Albert Serra in Film Comment
Interview with Jean-Pierre Léaud in Film Comment
An interview with Albert Serra in Mubi Notebook
Details of all Albert Serra's films here
Details of Albert Serra's installations etc here
New York Film Festival press conference with Albert Serra and Jean-Pierre Léaud - video
Film Comment podcast interview with Albert Serra
Interview with Jean-Pierre Léaud in the New York Times
Cannes Q&A with Albert Serra in The Hollywood Reporter
Listen to radio interviews with Jean-Pierre Léaud (in French) on France Culture and on France Inter
Interview with Jean-Pierre Léaud in Le Monde (in French)