This is a very very intelligent movie. From a historical point of view, it's perfect! It shows how cruel and vain the French noblesse was before the French Revolution of 1789, and why this country had a revolution! It's also a fantastic movie for the beauty of the French language. Actors are fabulous, with Berling, Rochefort and Ardant. For me, French cinema is always at it's peak when they're doing comedy of historical movies, like this one, or Beaumarchais l'insolent, Marquise, or Cyrano de Bergerac. By the way, I'd like to tell Thefan-2 of Detroit that the Ridicule of the title don't mean Ridiculous. In the Renaissance French language, it means Hard. And that's what is facing Berling, when he wants to get in touch the king to help the poor people of his land.

To get royal backing on a needed drainage project, a poor French lord must learn to play the delicate games of wit at court at Versailles.

Now, I know what I am supposed to enjoy about this film is the game of wits played between all these wealthy French folks. And to a certain extent I do. I really enjoyed the rhyming contest, for example. And it made me wonder how the translator handled that, because the subtitles rhymed, but could not possibly have matched the original French.

But what I actually liked most was the diving suit. That may be stupid, but as a genre fan, I love seeing makeup and costumes, and this old suit really looked great... sort of a sea monster meets robot look to it. Very cool.

This movie is pretty to look at and well made, but I have always felt very indifferent from costume dramas--particularly those involving a lot of rich French aristos who spend all their time talking and congratulating themselves on their exceedingly high sense of self-importance. When I watched the old MGM film, MARIE ANTOINETTE, I found it to be dull and when I saw more recent films like DANGEROUS LIASONS, VALMONT and RIDICULE, I also thought they were awfully dull. Now I know many have enjoyed them and I wish them well, but these films all place so much emphasis on costumes, hair and the irrelevant trappings of extreme wealth. By the way, I am a history teacher and often I love historical films, but perhaps it's the "annoying American" in me that isn't particularly interested in noblemen and women--I much prefer films about REAL people--REAL people I can connect with. I am not saying that the vacuous people in these films aren't "real" but that it was sure hard to care about them or get into the films. In fact, I really think the best value in RIDICULE is illustrating just how worthless the aristos were in France and how ripe they were for revolution--sort of like a non-surreal and non-humorous version of a Buñuel film such as THE DISCRETE CHARM OF THE BOURGEIOSE.

If you ask me, I'd much rather watch an old classic about the French Revolution, such as A TALE OF TWO CITIES or THE SCARLET PIMPERNELL--they're just a lot more interesting and I care much more about the characters.