Ever wonder why there are only male leaders and visionaries mentioned in your history books? Well, the key lies in the word itself — “his-story.” Thankfully, a film releasing this September in the UK revolutionizes the tale of Henry VIII and his last wife, by retelling the story from her POV.
If you google “women leaders in history” you’ll find that most of the ones mentioned are 20th and 21st century poets, activists and actresses. All very recent additions, while leaders of the opposite sex include pharaohs, conquerers, emperors and kings and go as far back as history itself.
So is it any wonder that women often don’t feel comfortable boasting about their achievement, and if you’re one of the very few who occasionally do, men and other females less confident will ostracize you and throw sticks in your wheels, every step of the way. Or worse, try to outdo you, which is always so squalid.
When women figure prominently in history books, they are often labelled as sluts, vixens or simply mad, as is the case with Juana “the Mad” de Castile and Lucrezia Borgia, the latter rumored to have gotten involved in all kinds of mischief.
Now, a new film, which actually world premiered in Cannes a year ago and has gone on to be released in the US, France and other countries before landing finally in the UK this week, retells one of the most famous chapters in British history through a feminine lens. That phenomenally matriarchal POV belongs to Brazilian Algerian helmer Karim Aïnouz, in his English language debut. Aïnouz adapted to the big screen the novel Queen’s Gambit by Elizabeth Fremantle originally published in 2013, with the help of a screenplay written by Henrietta and Jessica Ashworth and featuring the spellbinding cinematography of Hélène Louvart (Pina, The Lost Daughter and Nezouh).
Firebrand is everything but your average historical drama. In fact, it plays somewhat like a gothic horror film, with hints of other genres thrown in and features a magnificent cast, art direction and costume design. It is fantastic looking and is acted wondrously by both Alicia Vikander, who plays Katherine along with Jude Law, inhabiting the role of Henry VIII in all its anger, irrationality and obesity. Aïnouz also forgoes the romantic turmoil in Katherine’s life which is present in Fremantle’s book, to accommodate for a woman’s story — finally “HER-story” — full of courage and resolve.
Firebrand may well turn out to be my favorite film of the year. It is also the most important film I’ve watched in the past year, because of how Katherine is portrayed — beautiful, subtle, vulnerable and unafraid.
When I write about courage I’m always reminded of something I read, which basically pointed out that courage isn’t the absence of fear, but rather the ability to act, regardless of it. Aïnouz’s Katherine Parr is the poster woman of that statement, as we can feel her impossibly precarious position through the film. Yet she fights on because her principles, which include the importance of education, religious freedom and culture in women’s lives — revolutionary ideals for a 16th century woman to hold — seem more important to her than even her own life.
The story of Firebrand, a word also used to describe a subversive, a troublemaker, unfolds during the last year of Henry VIII’s life. The ailing king has just returned from fighting in France and his ego is hurt. His legs are so infected with pus-filled boils, the result of the acute gout he developed as his waistline got bigger and bigger with age, that he admits having felt embarrassed to get on his horse in front of his soldiers. He confides in Katherine, who has been Regent of England during his absence and depends on her, one of the reasons she is still alive, and still married to Henry. Parr, for her part, has remained faithful to her husband, despite her feelings for Thomas Seymour (Sam Riley), to whom we know from the history books, she was married briefly after Henry’s death.
All the while, Katherine is supporting her childhood friend Anne Askew (Erin Doherty) as Anne fights for religious freedoms and tries to avoid detection and persecution by the King’s forces. And Katherine is also the only mom Princess Elizabeth (Junia Rees playing that Elizabeth!) and Prince Edward (Patrick Buckley) have ever known.
The book’s writer Elizabeth Fremantle explains that “there is a tendency to remember Katherine as the woman who looked after Henry in his old age. However, she is a highly intellectual woman – the first English woman to publish a book in the English language. She is a survivor. The narrative of the survivor is so important at this moment in time.”
Our stories are becoming less and less visible, hijacked by male-helmed projects where women are used, abused and disposed of cinematically, and Firebrand became an immediate LOVE for me. Two thumbs up and all the way up too.
The look of the film is also important, and beautifully achieved. It owes a lot to the court portraits by German-born painter Hans Holbein the Younger who famously painted Henry VIII. Jude Law as the King is hauntingly like that portrait by Holbein where he stands in his full, younger glory, almost daring the world to approach him.
Jude Law, Alicia Vikander and Karim Aïnouz on the set of 'Firebrand'
The colors of the costumes form a movable artwork with the art direction, the work of Michael O’Connor and Helen Scott respectively. Hair and make up by Jenny Shircore complete the beautiful aesthetics. But one would expect no less than magnificent from a producer like Gabrielle Tana, whose past credits include Philomena, The White Crow and The Invisible Woman — the latter two directed by Ralph Fiennes.
Ultimately, Firebrand has it all going for it — great acting, magnificent art direction, the perfect DoP and a filmmaker unafraid of giving his power up to a great woman character.
So, I can see no better way to end this piece than with Aïnouz’s own words: “To me, this is a reimagining of a ‘period’ film, closer to a psychological horror film, or a political thriller—a potboiler set in superstitious, blood-soaked Tudor England, steeped in the everyday horrors of the court and the reality of surviving a tyrant. As Katherine dared to imagine her own idea of a nation, I dared to imagine the reliefs and flavors of this medieval, pre-imperial England. I imagined an invasive and brutal nature, as menacingly mysterious as the power games and conspiracies that inhabit the icy palatial corridors. The whisper of the wind blends with the characters’ cries of pain, despair and hope. The burden of the unspoken, the overwhelming force of survival, the discomfort of bodies trapped in the weight of royal garments. The staggering of power mixed with the unavoidable cold of England. Something dense, intense, like the weight of matter.”
Firebrand will be in UK cinemas starting September 6th, a MetFilm Distribution release. But just a word of warning — if you wish for everything to be like in a history book, this is not the film for you. View it only if you think cinema should make us dream, for a better outcome and a fairer history, or her-story in this case.
Images courtesy of MetFilm Distribution, used with permission.