A Woman Who Will Not Be Silenced-Battling to be Believed in The Last Duel: Part One

*Trigger Warning-this article contains discussion of rape and sexual assault*

Living in Medieval France in the 1300s, Marguerite (Jodie Comer) is very much a woman in a man’s world. Here, men serve men in a way that feels eerily familiar centuries later— taking what they want, often without consequence. To put it simply, they wield all the power. The Last Duel is an amalgamation of three different accounts of the rape of the newly married Marguerite by Le Gris (Adam Driver), a former friend of her husband, Jean de La Carrouges (Matt Damon). 

Although the film is segmented into three chapters, each of which reflects the narrative told first through Carrouges’ perspective followed by Le Gris’s, this editorial refers only to the third and final account. This is because it is told from Marguerite’s point of view, which reveals the disturbing truth told through the eyes of a woman who has repeatedly been abused, gaslighted and ostracised by society. Marguerite’s tale is as old as time but is also unsettlingly contemporary in speaking to the fears and struggles women face every day as they battle to be believed.

Part One: Transactional Marriages, Male Pleasure and Women as Possessions

Deep in the stony and imposing archways of her family home, Marguerite watches silently in the background as Jean de Carrouges argues and debates with her father over the land he is to acquire with her dowry. The two men discuss and barter over Marguerite as though she were an inanimate object. Carrouges favours land and provision of an heir over personal compatibility as he asks coldly: ‘I suspect she is capable of performing her wifely duties?’ This transactional inquiry is indicative of the tone of the arrangement—it is in effect a business deal—devoid of love. Marguerite must remain speechless, as (not for the last time) her fate is decided by two men-notably she has no female support and any trace of a mother figure is absent. 

Now betrothed to Courrages, Marguerite is severed from her father and all familiar surroundings. Her new family consists of a husband who is away from home more than he is present, a frosty mother-in-law Nicole du Buchard (Harriet Walter), and their team of house staff. Whilst having sex with Marguerite, Carrouges is too preoccupied with his own pleasure to realise that his wife is experiencing pain. Their post-coital pillow talk consists of a reference to sex being ‘satisfactory’ and his hopes that they have conceived—for him this is the sole purpose of their intimacy. There is uncomfortable darkness in the scenes of their intercourse when we later realise it shares similarities to Marguerite’s sexual assault. Both Le Gris and Courrages choose not to look at her during sex and thus devalue and dehumanize her in the act. Furthermore, her displeasure is shown in juxtaposition to the orgasms of both men. 

At a social gathering, Marguerite is shown with female company as they discuss the merits and drawbacks of Le Gris who is known for his hedonistic behaviour. Despite agreeing that he is pleasing to the eye, Marguerite calls out her suspicions about trusting him, a comment that will come back to haunt her at her trial. We learn that Marguerite has recently been ‘counselling’ her husband in an effort to heal the breach between him and Le Gris. She advises Carrouges to smile at Le Gris: “even when you don’t mean it”. Dancing with her husband, she looks over with friendliness to Le Gris who, in his arrogance, misreads this as flirtation. 

Back at home, Carrouges shows Marguerite a white horse which in being purchased: ‘for breeding’ represents a living metaphor of herself. This is soon mounted by a black horse, acting as a foreshadowing of her rape by Le Gris. Carrouges beats the black horse down ordering it to: ‘get off my mare’ before instructing a servant to ensure: ‘the gates remain closed, my mare is in season’ a remark that exposes his possessive attitude towards Marguerite. With Carrouges off on another campaign, Marguerite wanders the stables before coming across the (now pregnant) white horse. She asks the attendant why it is penned in rather than being allowed to roam freely and he explains that he is under strict command from Carrouges to keep it tied up. In response, Marguerite gives him permission to release the horse and thus grant it the freedom she so desperately desires herself.

In her husband’s absence, Marguerite flourishes, handling the day to day running of the home with ease and success. One of the house staff remarks how “colour in your face, you look well” and she admits to Carrouges ever-watchful mother how she enjoys: ‘doing these tasks.’ However, she still comes under scrutiny for her: ‘fruitlessness,’ and with the lack of an heir, Marguerite finds herself visited by a doctor who claims that to bear a child she needs to experience: ‘a pleasurable conclusion akin to your husbands’. That she is unable to share in such pleasure is not blamed on Courrages, instead, the failing is deemed to be hers’ alone. In this humiliating exchange, Marguerite once again finds herself judged by men. 

When Carrouges returns home, she welcomes him dutifully. After being left alone for days and excited at his arrival, she purchases a new dress. This is met with instant disdain by her husband who, upon seeing her, declares,: ‘my god, have you lost your dignity. Upstairs before people think you a harlot!’ Before long, Carrouges departs for Paris, but before he does so he forbids his wife from leaving the grounds. As a man, he has free agency and is allowed to roam where he pleases, but as a woman, Marguerite must be kept, like the white horse—-tied up and locked behind gates. Once he has left, she is also further abandoned by her mother-in-law, who takes all the house staff on an errand off-site, leaving Marguerite entirely alone.