Queen Margot: The Director’s Cut

With its ample nudity and gore, fiery theological polemics and demythologized depiction of French royalty as incestuous autocrats caught up in dastardly political intrigue, Patrice Chéreau’s Queen Margot caused a stir upon its initial release in 1994, garnering the Cannes Jury Prize and accolades for Isabel Adjani’s remarkable portrayal of the titular sovereign—quite a coup for a slyly anachronistic costume drama set in the gloom-and-doom 16th century and featuring one of the most sensational wild boar attacks in all of cinema. To commemorate the film’s 20th anniversary this lavish period piece has been brought up to date through technical refinement and full-length restoration, every added moment and audiovisual improvement enhancing the ideologically righteous, bosom-heaving splendor of the director’s grand (Guignol) vision. Bayonets and tongues are sharpened and wielded lethally in a deliriously frenetic rush of bloody battles and boudoir power plays, as the increasingly beleaguered yet carnally omnivorous queen tussles with arranged-marriage spouse Henri de Bourbon (a glowering Daniel Auteuil), passionate lover La Môle (a brooding Vincent Pérez) and scheming relatives for control of the throne and Europe’s religious future. As Catholics and Protestants alike lose their heads in the notorious St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, Adjani’s steely-eyed monarch learns that true love is no match against a mother scorned (the scene-stealing Vima Lisi as Catherine de’ Medici). –Steven Jenkins