Review of The Duellists (1977) by Jj M — 27 Apr 2011

Ridley Scott's The Duelists is quite possibly the best sword fighting film I've seen, and one of the best Napoleonic period pieces, despite having no battle scenes. Although it takes place amidst the Napoleonic wars, and although both the protagonists are soldiers, The Duelists is not a war movie. Rather, it is a character study of two men, and an irrepressible feud pursued across years and countries. It could perhaps be called a relationship film, but not in the usual sense. Whereas most relationship movies involve growing love and understanding, the relationship between Armand d'Hubert and Lieutenant Feraud is one antagonism and self-destruction.

Despite being of the same age and profession, d'Hubert (Keith Carradine) and Feraud (Harvey Keitel) could not be more different. D'Hubert is charming, likable, and never takes things too seriously, preferring to take things in stride. Feraud on the other hand is borderline psychotic. He takes offense with incredible ease, and always demands satisfaction. When we first meet him, he has just impaled another man, supposedly over the honor of his unit. It turns out that the man he killed was the nephew of the mayor of a major city, and orders are given for his arrest. It is d'Hubert's great misfortune to be the one who delivers this news to Feraud, sparking their first duel. Over the next sixteen years, they will fight no less than four more, not counting one that was interrupted by Cossacks.

Why does this go on? It is because Feraud will simply not give up his grudge. Long after he's forgotten the exact circumstances of their first meeting, he still holds a venomous hatred for d'Hubert, one that cannot be sated by any number of victories. He will not be satisfied until Armand is dead at his hands.

As for d'Hubert, he has no wish to continue this feud. He just wants Feraud to leave him alone. Yet his sense of honor prevents him from declining Feraud's challenges, and at one point compels him to defend the life of his enemy. He eventually takes on a fatalistic attitude about the matter. And why should he not? After the first duel, a surgeon told him that there can be no duel if they are in different places, if they are of different rank, or if France is at war. Yet the two keeping crossing each other's paths during lulls in the fighting, when they hold the same rank.

Even after Napoleon is exiled and pair enter semi-retirement at their estates, it still doesn't end, even though its cost them so much. Both bear many wounds from their duels, and cost Armand the woman he loved. It is, in the words a fortune teller seen midway through the film, "a quarrel pursued for its own sake.".

Keitel and Carradine do a wonderful job of bringing their characters to life. Keitel fully captures Feraud's obsession and burning anger, even when he is at rest you can see the hatred in his eyes. And Carradine carries himself through a range of acting styles. From the young debonair Lieutenant cracking jokes over dinner, to the exhausted, frostbitten major trudging across the Russian steppes, to the respected middle aged aristocrat, exasperated that he must do battle yet again, and so afraid of losing good life and wonderful family he has earned for himself.

But acting alone isn't enough; in a movie called The Duelists one would expect some pretty fancy swordplay. And that's exactly what we get. Every duel is excellently filmed and choreographed, and each confrontation has a feel all its own. The first two are precise, even elegant displays of swordsmanship. Then come a brutal, incredibly physical slugfest, an exceedingly tense horseback duel, akin to a medieval joust, and finally a deadly game of cat and mouse, played with two pistols apiece among overgrown ruins. When their contest a wills is settled once and for all, it is done so masterfully, and in a manner I could not have anticipated.

The Duelists is a work of excitement and suspense, held together with a solid plot, and filled with strong performances and lavish attention to detail. It may be at quite the same level as Gladiator or Alien, but it is everything audiences should come to expect from Ridley Scott.