''The King's Daughters'' (french: Saint-Cyr) is a 2000 French

period drama A historical drama (also period drama, costume drama, and period piece) is a work set in a past time period, usually used in the context of film and television. Historical drama includes historical fiction and romance film, romances, adventure f ...

film directed by

Patricia Mazuy Patricia Mazuy (; born 1960) is a French film director and screenwriter. Her film '' Peaux de vaches'' was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival. Eleven years later her film '' Saint-Cyr'' was screened in ...

. It was screened in the

Un Certain Regard (, meaning 'a certain glance') is a section of the Cannes Film Festival's official selection. It is run at the Debussy, parallel to the competition for the . This section was introduced in 1978 by Gilles Jacob. The section presents 20 films w ...

section at the

2000 Cannes Film Festival The 53rd Cannes Film Festival started on 14 May and ran until 25 May 2000. French film director, screenwriter, and producer Luc Besson was the Jury President. The Palme d'Or went to the Danish film ''Dancer in the Dark'' by Lars von Trier. The fe ...

. It was adapted from the novel '' La maison d’Esther'' by

Yves Dangerfield Yves may refer to: * Yves, Charente-Maritime, a commune of the Charente-Maritime department in France * Yves (given name), including a list of people with the name * ''Yves'' (single album), a single album by Loona * ''Yves'' (film), a 2019 Fren ...

Plot

In March 1685,

Louis XIV , house = Bourbon , father = Louis XIII , mother = Anne of Austria , birth_date = , birth_place = Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France , death_date = , death_place = Palace of Vers ...

’s final wife

Madame de Maintenon Madame may refer to: * Madam, civility title or form of address for women, derived from the French * Madam (prostitution), a term for a woman who is engaged in the business of procuring prostitutes, usually the manager of a brothel * ''Madame'' ...

wishes to set up a boarding school for young daughters of noble families that have fallen on hard times, the

Maison royale de Saint-Louis The Maison Royale de Saint-Louis was a boarding school for girls set up on 15 June 1686 at Saint-Cyr (what is now the commune of Saint-Cyr-l'École, Yvelines) in France by king Louis XIV at the request of his second wife, Françoise d'Aubigné, Mar ...

, a school where girls receive a pious but liberal education. The first difficulty is that the students from the provinces all speak different regional languages and dialects and the first task is to teach them all to speak a standardised Parisian French. After a few years of indifference, the school’s first aims prove impossible to attain. An important crisis arises from a performance by the students of an extract from '' Iphigenie'' by

Racine Jean-Baptiste Racine ( , ) (; 22 December 163921 April 1699) was a French dramatist, one of the three great playwrights of 17th-century France, along with Molière and Corneille as well as an important literary figure in the Western traditio ...

. This provokes too much passion among the actors and so Madame de Maintenon asks Racine to write her a play for her students that praises virtue – this proves to be ''

Esther Esther is the eponymous heroine of the Book of Esther. In the Achaemenid Empire, the Persian king Ahasuerus seeks a new wife after his queen, Vashti, is deposed for disobeying him. Hadassah, a Jewess who goes by the name of Esther, is chosen ...

''. The students put on the new play and, when the king and his court attend the production, Madame de Maintenon realises that this had made the nobles of the court view her protégées as targets for seduction and marriage. Marriage proposals mount up and one nobleman even manages to break into the school. Madame de Maintenon decides to impose stricter rules and plunges into religion in an attempt to expiate her past. She asks an abbot to help her keep students on the right Christian moral path and keep them safe from the world. Instead of turning its students into an elite for the world outside, the school falls prey to realities, cuts itself off from reality and falls apart – the film ends with its final failure and closure.

Cast

Isabelle Huppert Isabelle Anne Madeleine Huppert (; born 16 March 1953) is a French actress. Described as "one of the best actresses in the world", she is known for her portrayals of cold and disdainful characters devoid of morality. She is the recipient of sev ...

Jean-Pierre Kalfon Jean-Pierre Kalfon (born 30 October 1938) is a French actor and singer. Selected filmography External links * 1938 births Living people French male film actors French male television actors Male actors from Paris French male stage a ...

as Louis XIV * Simon Reggiani as The Abbot *

Jean-François Balmer Jean-François Balmer (born April 18, 1946 in Valangin) is a Swiss actor. He has worked extensively in French cinema, television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and s ...

as Racine * Anne Marev as Madame de Brinon * Ingrid Heiderscheidt as Sylvine de la Maisonfort *

Nina Meurisse Nina Meurisse (born 14 November 1988) is a French actress. Meurisse was ten years old when she had her first lead role in a film. Selected filmography * '' The King's Daughters'' as Lucie de Fontenelle (2000) * '' Accomplices'' as Rebecca Legen ...

as Lucie de Fontenelle * Morgane Moré as Anne de Grandcamp * Bernard Waver as Gobelin *

Jérémie Renier (; born 6 January 1981) is a Belgian actor. His film debut was in the critically praised (1996), directed by the Dardenne brothers. He became better known to worldwide audiences in ''Brotherhood of the Wolf'' (2001) and (2005). The latter ...

as François de Réans * Jeanne Le Bigot as Lucie (child) * Mathilde Lechasles as Anne (child) * Alain Hinard as First soldier

Soundtrack

The film's score was composed by Welsh composer and former member of

the Velvet Underground The Velvet Underground was an American rock band formed in New York City in 1964. The original line-up consisted of singer/guitarist Lou Reed, multi-instrumentalist John Cale, guitarist Sterling Morrison, and drummer Angus MacLise. MacLise w ...

John Cale John Davies Cale (born 9 March 1942) is a Welsh musician, composer, singer, songwriter and record producer who was a founding member of the American rock band the Velvet Underground. Over his six-decade career, Cale has worked in various styl ...

. The score was arranged by Randy Wolf, and released as a soundtrack album.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:King's Daughters, The 2000 films French historical drama films 2000s historical drama films Films directed by Patricia Mazuy Films scored by John Cale Films set in the 1680s Films set in the 1690s Films based on French novels Films set in boarding schools 2000 drama films 2000s French films

Plot

Cast

Soundtrack

See also

References

External links