MovieChat Forums > Ridicule (1996) Discussion > The ending - spoilers

The ending - spoilers

posted 15 years ago by tody711
3 replies | jump to latest

Fantastic movie and probably quite true the way the nobles treated their subjects. The first scene is an "eye" opener, but when you got to the ball you saw just why scene 1 happened.
My questions are (since the VHS copy was a bit blury):
Where was the location of the first scene? France or England?
And who were the 2 characters standing on the hill at the end?
And were they in England?
Could not read the end english words about what happened to the guy and the girl in his swamps. What did it say?

People who like this should also watch Vatel.

[–] kathy-bernard 15 years ago

I can't answer all your questions, but I will answer the ones I know.
1) Can't recall the answer to your first question.
2) The characters at the end are his friend, the doctor, and some new character who the doctor was explaining how the court operated in France.
3) Yes, they were in England. They fled from France during the French Revolution since they were nobility and would have been likely killed had they stayed.
4) The English words at the end said that Gregory and Mathilde drained the swamp themselves and saved many lives without the king's help and lived through the French Revolution without being harmed. That made me wonder why Gregory didn't just drain the swamp before he ever came to Versailles.

[–] jangosboy 14 years ago

re: 4) It was a question of resources and, I imagine, Mathilde's input.

[–] intigfx 15 years ago

The first scene is in France, the Chevalier de Milletail is pissing on the old guy who humiliated him in the past by dubbing him "marquis de Stumblebum" when he fell at a ball (we don't actually see that in the movie).
At the ball in the end, the Chevalier de Milletail just passed his own humiliation on by doing to Ponceludon what was done to himself years before, hence dubbing him "marquis des Antipodes".