The story of the last legally authorized duel fought in medieval France. True story.

The cause?

It's the 14th century, Jean de Carrouges, rough but faithful squire in the service of the quirky King Charles VI, marries Marguerite de Thibouville despite the fact that her dowry does not include the coveted area of Alencon of which Le Gris, a favorite at the court of Count Peter d'Alencon, is feudal lord. Le Gris, a tall and physically imposing knight with a reputation as a womanizer, governs a large part of his lord's territory in addition to his estates.

Falling in love with Marguerite, he goes to her and in a crude deception rapes her.

Costei despite knowing the risks of a denunciation, confesses the act to her husband who seems to believe her, although he is wounded exclusively in pride and thirsty for revenge.

Authorized in France by the Parliament of Paris in 1386 is the history of the last Duel of God, legitimized by French law.

This was a form of ordeal, an institution typical of Germanic law, in which a judicial dispute was resolved through combat between the two contenders or their champions: it was believed that the outcome of the duel, conducted according to precise rituals, depended not so much on the valor of the combatants as on the judgment of God, who could only reward the one who was in the right, confirming in this case the truthfulness or denial of the rape that had occurred.

Yes, because the script opts for three versions:

- That of the knight Jean de Carrouges

- that of the victim Marguerite de Thibouville

- that of the aggressor Jacques de Gris

Jean challenges his friend to a duel, for his wife's honor but mostly for his own vanity and pride.

Interesting is the process before the permission for the challenge is granted: some questions addressed to the victim are sadly similar to some addressed to contemporary women rape victims, others, "scientifically" medieval, highlight surprising elements.

The Last Duel is the true story of the squires of the 'mad king,' who faced each other in a duel in Paris on December 29, 1386. It is never about weapons and men, the meaning is elsewhere and in the protagonist's gaze on the 'plumbing' sexuality of men so not at all 'knights,' a gaze also forerunner of women's rights.

The film is an adaptation of the historical novel "The Last Duel: A True Story of Crime, Scandal, and Trial by Combat in Medieval France" by Eric Jage, from which Scott does not hesitate to extrapolate the concept of the relativity of truth, for the three interpretations, the fact that a woman's word was atavistically a source of suspicion and the fact that the outcome of any duel was decided solely by God, the only one who possessed it.

The three versions, which return to the incident , reiterate certain scenes, as if to return to the scene of the crime, make the film an anthropological-cultural interlocking of judgments, prejudices and rules, often dwelling on the theme of CONSENSUS, still a topic of contemporary discussion on the subject of rape.

The duel between two men to confirm their exclusive possession over the woman and their right to abuse her are not so far removed from the current feminicides that are daily in the news.

If "truth is an illusion whose illusory nature has been lost" as Nietzsche argued," woman on a par with man is her own body but her body is a different thing from her" as De Beauvoir argued.

And this historical fact about rape so skillfully portrayed confronts the complex role of a woman who challenges conventions and prejudices with extreme courage by making the past take a leap into the future yet to be realized.

27-Jun-2023 by Beatrice