The Last Duel and Rape Culture

Last year, a movie called The Last Duel came out. I thought it looked pretty interesting but it came and went before I was able to get out to the theater. Over this past weekend, I decided to use my Amazon Prime to watch the movie. It was good but not what I expected.

The movie was marketed as a Medieval slash-and-stab story. Although there was slashing-and-stabbing aplenty (and it was always snowing, raining or both) that's not what the story is about. It's about rape culture and three people's greatly different perceptions of the same event.

The story is told in three chapters, each from the point of view of one of the three characters. The first two chapters are subtitled "[Character's Name} version of events" while the last, told from the point of view of the woman (a woman who's raped by one of the other main characters) as simply "the truth." The story shows how, from the woman's point of view, both men (her husband and the actual rapist) were using her against her will. The wedding scene was especially on point in this regard.

I highly recommend the movie, but I think it was badly marketed which led to it's box office failure.