Queen Christina (1933) USA, Rouben Moulian, Director
Starring: Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, Ian Keith, Lewis Stone
One of histories most enigmatic ruling monarchs, and subjected to intense speculation as to her interior motives, psyche, and love life already in the 17th Century, Sweden's Queen Kristina, daughter of Reformation-era warrior, King Gustavus Adolphus, and sponsor to Descartes, broke almost every cultural and religious taboo her contemporaries could throw at her. Garbo manages to capture both Kristina's sexual ambiguity (she was raised as a "boy", crowned as a "king", trained as a warrior, and rumoured to be bisexual) and her independence of character. Rarely noted, Elizabeth Young manages to keep up with Garba in Young's portrayal of Kristina as a child, effectively delivering the lines that set the course for the entire film.
I would recommend the film itself solely on the strength of the cinematography. One cannot but help falling in love with the country Kristina leads. Equally impressive are the costumes -- in line with such great epics as Eisenstein's Ivan IV (1944), and Kapur's Elizabeth (1998). While reviewers often criticize Queen Christina's lack of historicity, the story line seems comfortably in line with the many varied alternative histories the real Kristina left behind her.
That Garbo could portray such a strong woman who could and would fall in love with lesser men, while preserving her dignity and Kristina's focus on her kingdom, is one of the film's greatest strengths. Garbo plays off her real-time once-love interest, Gilbert, to generate one of film's great love stories. Unlike so many female portrayals in such passionate romances, Garbo ends Queen Christina as a single woman who dares to chart her own way in life.
(from Prairie Swede 01 Oct 2010)
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