Watched "The Last Duel" last night, a sadly overlooked but excellent film that shows Ridley Scott is still more energetic and visionary than directors a third of his age when he's excited about the material, and still brings out the best in his cast. But I have a quibble...
I thought the movie suffered a bit by declaring absolute certitude about events that are still somewhat disputed by historians. It might have been better - more intriguing and haunting, less heavy-handed - if it didn't confidently announce what "The Truth" really was.
Striving to avoid spoilers, but I wonder if a younger Ridley Scott - whose landmark films often contained a dash of ambiguity, of unsolved mystery, inviting the audience to supply its own prologues and epilogues - might have trimmed or omitted Act Three of this movie.
"The Last Duel" has a very particular feminist message it wants to convey, and it does so with a version of its tale that is not implausible or indefensible, but evidently not all historians agree with it. The same ideas could have been explored without announcing "The Truth."
As a longtime fan of Scott's movies, I was happier not knowing whether Deckard was a replicant, and MUCH happier not knowing exactly where the Alien came from. I wonder if "The Last Duel" might have likewise worked even better as a question than a statement.
Has Scott developed less patience with framing his stories as questions and mysteries, rather than statements - or do he and his collaborators worry modern movie audiences won't arrive at the correct conclusions unless they are told exactly what to think? /end
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