The Duellists

There's an actress in this film named "Gay Hamilton" and that actually about sums it up. A shockingly well constructed and directed movie, considering the budget and the fact that it was Ridley Scott's debut feature film. It's very well shot, two scenes in particular made me literally say "oh my god" out loud in a room with just me and my cat. Incredible use of natural lighting and the colors of a lot of these scenes are just superb. Surely Ridley Scott will keep this up for the rest of his career, right? But to me, the most intriguing parts of this movie are in its themes. It is movie about two men who come very very close to killing each other multiple times, over something petty and stupid. In the name of "honor", they fight at most reasonable opportunities. It's a very, uh, masculine approach to hashing out your issues. And in my opinion, that's kind of what this movie is getting at. Men are violent, terrifying beasts to be around sometimes. It's historically been conditioned into us that the best way out of a conflict is with fists, with violence. And it's counterproductive, and stupid, and will probably get you killed if that's how you choose to live your life. I think the most striking conversation in this movie, and one that I will quote to end this review, is one between Feraud and D'Hubert's love interest whose name I do not remember. This is about as straightforward as The Duellists gets with its themes about masculinity and male rage and violence. "I knew a man who was stabbed to death by a woman, gave him the surprise of his life." > "I once knew a woman who was beaten to death by a man. I don't think it surprised her at all."