AFFFF25: The Deluge

The remarkable Mélanie Laurent and Guillaume Canet take centre stage in writer-director Gianluca Jodice's transfixing historical drama, evocatively depicting the last days of the French Revolution and the fates of Marie Antoinette and King Louis XVI.

1792. The official Parisian residence of the king, the Tuileries Palace, has been stormed. Louis, Marie Antoinette and their children have been arrested and confined in a medieval chateau in the city centre. Far from the splendour of Versailles, where the family and their retinue had lived until only a few years earlier, they are vulnerable for the first time in their lives. While the King naively tries to keep spirits high and manners intact, his pragmatic and imperious wife is far more realistic about their predicament, and the destiny that likely awaits them…

Drawn from the diaries of Louis XVI’s personal valet, this exceptionally crafted drama features not only marvellous production design and cinematography, but incredible costumes by twice Oscar-nominated designer Massimo Cantini Parrini. Dominated by the exceptional performances of its two leads, The Deluge is a compelling dramatic rejoinder to Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette and Benoît Jacquot’s Farewell My Queen, which both depicted the royal couple’s lives well before the party was over.