The Challenge of Our Favourite Things

Fabulous shoes and gorgeous cakes are some of my favourite things, so I was delighted by Sofia Coppola’s latest film creation: Marie Antoinette. It is a visual extravagance of shoes (Manolo Blahniks), cakes and colour. Over the weekend I have been wondering if there is more to this film than first appears. There has been some criticism directed at the film as it treats Marie Antoinette sympathetically as a naïve child, it doesn’t attempt to portray much of the political situation at the time or contrast the poverty stricken situation of the peasants with the excesses of the royal court. Some critics have seen this as a Hollywood celebration of its own excesses. . I don’t know whether Coppola’s intentions were to simply celebrate lavish spending and partying, or whether something deeper is occurring. Coppola’s use of modern language and modern music connected the film firmly into our time and this left me with some heavy questions. It is so easy to be critical of the excesses of 18th Century Royalty because we would never waste money fighting a war overseas when there were people starving around us would we? Even more personally there is a challenge to our ignorance of poverty - are we living in our protected little bubble while people around us are struggling to find enough money for food? Are we more concerned with what is happening overseas and unwilling or unable to see the (emotional and physical) poverty that is closer to us than we think? Just before Christmas I helped deliver food parcels for church and I was struck again by peoples genuine struggle to survive even here is Auckland and particularly how close to me they live and yet how little opportunity I have to interact with them and hear about their lives. The final challenge for me and although amusing is also very serious do I really need another pair of shoes when so many people in the world don’t even have one pair?

Christina