Overview

Upon returning from a hunting expedition during the summer of 1715, King Louis XIV (Jean-Pierre Léaud) feels a sharp pain in his leg. He begins to die, surrounded by both his loyal followers in the royal chambers and the best wig work currently in theaters. While one might think there would be not much to watching a man die of gangrene, the painterly shots—as if Fuseli were invited to the House of Bourbon—are elegiac (naturally), haunting, and humbling in their awareness and acceptance of mortality. Given that Léaud is best known as a freeze-framed kid in 1959’s The 400 Blows, the stretch of his life, especially when set against the distance to 1715, places lifetimes in haunting perspective.