Henry of Navarre (2010) Movie Review, Trailer, Film Still and Poster

Germany, France, Czech Republic, Spain 2010
Director: Jo Baier
Cast: Julien Boisselier, Joachim Król, Andreas Schmidt, Roger Casamajor, Armelle Deutsch
Rating: -
Language: German, French, Italian, Latin
Release Date: 4 March 2010 (Germany)
Running Time: 2 hours 29 minutes

The Movie Review

Henry of Navarre film still 1


HENRY Of NAVARRE
Storyline:
Cast:
Ending:
Overall:

I picked Henry of Navarre solely to satiate my hunger of epic and historical movies but I really didn't expect it to be so good and be so entertaining that I didn't feel the movie was running almost two and a half hour. This is a very amusing story of apparently one of the most famous Kings of France, Henri de Navarre.

In late 16th-century France, Little Henry is already fatherless during his childhood but he's raised with good care and compassion from his mother Jeanne d'Albret (Marta Calvó) and his castle butler Beauvoise (Sven Pippig). Little Henry is the future king of a region in Southern France called Navarre but since childhood Henry has shown a unique trait of being a laidback person who can be close to peasants. Henry loves Navarre so much that he actually chooses not to travel to Paris if not for such an immediate cause. You see, in that time France is torn apart between two religious groups known as Wars of Religion, between the Catholics who run the government but is hated by the people and the Protestants (including Henry) which known as Huguenots.

Henry is taught in a way of war and engages in real battles since childhood. War and bloody conflicts are all there is to his life until someday when he's already become a man (Julien Boisselier as Adult Henry), Catharina de Medicis (Hannelore Hoger) the current Ruler of France proposes a peace treaty by marrying her daughter --the scandalous, incestuous and slutty Marguerite de Valois 'Margot' (Armelle Deutsch)-- to Henry of Navarre. Henry and Margot refuse each other at first but he eventually accepts the offer for the sake of gaining peace. But alas, when his beloved mother is visiting Paris, she died! Some say she's been poisoned but some say she died of lung failure. And the situation is getting worse when the Huguenots, who come to Paris to celebrate the wedding, are massacred! Henry is torn apart between setting off a war or remaining tactful. Fortunately, Henry then meets the love of his life Gabrielle d'Estrées (Chloé Stefani) that he becomes fully invigorated to rule his people and loyal followers.

Back in Elementary school, learning history felt like a big dull waste of time. But growing up, I realize I've actually been learning history through all the books that my parents gave me or when watching any epic films on Betamax video tapes of their collection. And the excitement doubles when I saw a historical feature film --which was not produced by Hollywood-- just like tonight watching Henry of Navarre. The approach taken in telling the story of the 16-Century French Kingdom and her King is fun and playful, but interestingly never forget to put on some blood in relation to war and lotsa of nudity from surprisingly all the lead actresses.

But if you expect to see some full bloody out-blown war, you'll get a bit disappointed. "Henry of Navarre AKA Henri 4 AKA Henry IV" solely is some kind of biographical film about a man and not a war movie based on historical war. To this extent, the most laudable credits go to Julien Boisselier as he could give such laudable, excellent and charming performance as the rather enigmatic and interesting King Henry of Navarre. There is some resemblance from the real panting of King Henry and Julien Boisselier, if I may say. And the rest of the cast have given uniformly convincing and believable performances. Armelle Deutsch, Chloé Stefani and Gabriela Maria Schmeide are not just taking off their clothes and performing full frontal nudity without any acting capacity, oh no my friends, they are the perfect acting partner for Julien Boisselier, most especially Armelle Deutsch with her fiery character.

The beauty of the movie does not lie however solely on the beauty of the actresses but also in the editing, storytelling technique, cinematography, costume, dialogue but it is actually the story of King Henry itself which is already interesting by its own accord. So, I am really recommending this to epic and historical movie fans. Henry of Navarre is NOT the type of slow-moving and lecturing drama about a man, in a nutshell, Henry of Navarre is just satisfying...

> Another movie relating to Henry IV: La reine Margot (1994).

> Exciting accounts of another King of France, Henry VIII: The Other Boleyn Girl (2008).

© iwan pranowo of Movielogy.com
Twitter: @movielogy
posted: Wednesday, 30 November 2011 07:00 pm