[theme song playing]
[man singing] ♪ Deep in the ocean, dead and cast away ♪
♪ Where innocence is buried in flames ♪
♪ A million miles from home, I'm walking ahead ♪
♪ I'm frozen to the bones ♪
♪ I am a soldier on my own ♪
♪ I don't know the way I'm riding up the heights of shame ♪
♪ I'm waiting for the call, The hand on the chest ♪
♪ I'm ready for the fight and fate ♪
[knock on door]
Come in.
[door closes]
I just saw a very pleasing young man leave.
I'm happy to see you're keeping your beautiful vitality.
You have received my letter?
I have, yes.
Tomorrow I'll be in Versailles for the royal audience which concerns you.
And of course with your dear Gercourt.
[sighs] It's only theatrics, dear.
Gercourt and Castellet already got the royal assent to do as they will.
Your title and your assets will be seized.
I'm not so interested in a show where I know the ending already.
The spectacle's sure to be mediocre.
Even if, in this play, the role of the surprise witness
and traitor's perfectly played by a promising star.
I'll help you. I want to. You need it.
Some money.
Well, then our wonderful friendship amounts to a sum of cash.
[sighs] You have to trust me. Go to London. Quickly as you can.
-But why not? -I'll go to Versailles.
-That's not possible. -I have to defend myself.
You've had the foresight to never even think about betting against me.
-So keep it up. -Just go now.
-Depart for London, quickly. -[laughs]
I have dear friends who could help you.
Lady Isabelle.
[laughs]
Well, this will maybe get you settled in.
-Alone for how long? -It's a gift.
-You're a free woman. -Merci.
Madame.
-[flames bursting] -[sighs]
Oh, I'm famished.
[cultery clutters]
Madame de Volanges is here, Madame. She's accompanied by a bailiff.
-Very well. Bring them in. -It's just...
They haven't demanded your presence.
-Bonjour. -Madame.
I didn't want to bother you while you were eating supper.
Madame la Marquise, if you please.
-What are you doing? -An inventory.
You know how much I cherished my brother.
His house is somehow a projection of his spirit, still.
You understand, of course, that I cannot allow you to ransack
his estate before you forever lose your post and title.
I am Marquise de Merteuil, and I will die Marquise de Merteuil.
You were always a whore.
You lived that way, and you'll die that way.
How could my poor Cécile, my sweet, fair girl, be completely fooled by you?
The Comte de Gercourt's intervention with our good king
will help re-establish the truth.
You were never truly wed to my brother, the Marquise de Merteuil.
You simply abused the confidence of an old man who was far too good to you.
He was a lecher and fiend, your brother,
who appeared to think I was some kind of beef.
I was married and ironed everything in here,
to the pots all your dear servants piss in. It's all mine.
[yells]
Pitiful fool.
Proceed.
-[footsteps] -[floor cracking]
[rustling]
-[door closes] -Madame.
I just want to say adieu. I heard you're going to Versailles.
You want to say adieu and perhaps also discuss Cécile?
She's neither at her mother's nor the Marquis de Merteuil's
who won't receive me.
If you have any idea where she could be...
Alas.
I am sorry. I cannot help you.
[Danceny] It's killing me. I don't understand.
I've been told the Marquis de Merteuil has trouble of late.
I wanted to help. She decided to go a different way.
And same as you.
There's a bitter taste now on my tongue.
I thought she was like me.
Isabelle's some other kind of woman, though.
Full of rage, who won't be killed without killing.
[Danceny] Your face seems veiled by melancholy.
-Go on, young man. Leave. -I forbid you to.
-Forbid, do you? -Yes, I forbid you.
I won't allow you to not admire yourself the way that I have done.
Look at yourself.
[tender, slow music playing]
This woman, she wasn't made to regret.
If Cécile heard you now speaking this way, with such liberty,
she would say she's proud of you.
[breathing heavily]
[both sighing]
Forgive me. I'm sorry, Madame.
-Madame, I find you very... -That'll do.
Madame, I am sorry. All my thoughts are with Cécile.
Well, she's not at my house.
But you know where she is.
There's nothing I don't know about my nephew.
Get out.
[door opens, closes]
[bell dinging]
Go prepare my transport. I want to go out.
Yes, madame.
My dear Vicomte, I'm desperate. I had to see you.
I beg you, go with me to Versailles. Vicomte.
I hope you do not find fault in my inability to resist the urge
to see you today.
My dear Vicomte, I hope you've been well. The situation is most perilous.
I worry I face ruin, humiliation, destruction.
My dear Vicomte, my life is in your hands. Oh, if you could please accompany me
to Versailles.
Only your presence will allow me to be heard.
[upbeat, pulsing music plays]
[sighs]
-Bonjour, Cécile. -Madame.
I had an awful conversation with your aunt.
-I heard, yes. -[Isabelle] She's right.
Alone in Versailles, I'm nothing.
-Go with me. -[smirks]
I risk losing my wealth and my position.
I'd rather die than imagine you in the street.
-So what do you defend me? -Me, beg his majesty for my survival,
and that of my dearest friends?
Not if it's an exchange for my reputation. I can't help you.
A man, a vicomte and so eloquent.
You would know how to make yourself heard there.
No.
[Valmont] I was lucky to have been born a man, a Vicomte.
A nephew of a wonderful aunt who watches over me like an angel.
So I'll be spared.
Your position is more delicate, I admit it.
I would love to help out. But how would I?
[Isabelle] I know you, Vicomte. Now that we're alone,
let us cease these games and just tell me what you want.
You.
Your hand. Everything.
It's ironic, but it's true. Our salvation's in the Church.
Or more precisely, my friend, Cardinal of the Church.
He won't refuse me.
He has the power to marry us. And that would void our first union.
Even the King couldn't oppose it.
You'll perhaps excuse me if I don't kneel for the proposal.
We know you've accepted already.
So you would have me once again?
[smirks]
[Valmont] It would be a fitting end to our story.
I've begun writing it, actually. I'd be grateful to hear what you think.
[sighs]
So this is your version of it? Ready to marry the one
she thinks is perfect and sublime?
Our heroine says she's so in love that she might die in ecstasy.
It's a bit contrived. Literature should accentuate some aspects of life,
-so they're more meaningful. -[object clattering]
-Watch out! -[screams]
Valmont.
[Lucille] Chevalier, stop. I beg of you.
Watching you come to his aid makes me even more committed.
Give me your weapon. Chevalier.
I don't know your role in my downfall, madame, but--
If someone should pay, it's me.
I encouraged Lucille to do this so as to perfect her education.
And now she's a free woman.
She has nothing to be ashamed of. Especially not in front of you.
[intense music playing]
-Do it. -[shuddering]
Go on, do it.
[screams] Do it!
-Isabelle. -Give me the gun.
[Danceny] No, mademoiselle.
Cécile, I love you. It's all I have.
When I first met you,
I believed to love you just meant accepting you as you are,
not as I dream of you.
Not to perform any possessiveness, but to just accompany you.
To belong to nobody and to be glad about my state.
To learn to be as free as you.
Then you could love me a bit more.
But no.
I must protest, Mademoiselle.
My reason tells me to think this way, but my whole body says my way of loving
is normal and fair.
Healthy and beautiful.
Why must I feel so alone though, if so?
[Cécile] Chevalier?
-[soft piano music playing] -[kissing]
-Is Danceny right with his passion? -That clown.
That clown is at this moment with the woman he loves who loves him too.
[smirks]
-Are you really so afraid? -Afraid of what?
You haven't listened to me.
Come on.
-[drawer slides] -[lock opening]
Here's everything. It's yours.
I give you all my masks.
And this?
[Velmont] Read it, please.
I don't want to hide.
It's all yours now. I'll leave you to it.
Are you asking me to believe you've become someone else?
I took pleasure in seducing the wives
of the most powerful men in the kingdom.
There's plenty there to have me killed if you wish.
Surprised by my recklessness? You see, you've made me a clown.
That's just the role you were filling when you first arrived at my workhouse.
Have you really been unable to notice how I've changed?
How you've inspired me to change?
What are you doing?
I'm trying to warm your heart.
It isn't too late.
But you will have to believe I can be a new person as well.
[tender, soft music plays]
[both sigh]
[kissing]
Stay with me.
And marry me.
[soft sigh]
[velvety, sensual music plays]
[both sigh]
[intense instrumental music plays]
Cécile.
Are you okay?
What happened between you and Valmont?
-I beg you, say it. -Danceny, please.
Don't lie to me. I want the truth.
You made love to him, but how often?
Tell me how often.
[soft, enchanting melody plays]
[waves crashing]
[groans]
[soft whispering]
-[mystical music playing] -[vocalizing]
Thank you.
[music lowers suddenly]
[breathes heavily]
[inhales deeply]
[door closes]
[Vicomte] My dear Aunt,
The game is coming to an end, and I am the one winning.
Isabelle will come to me tonight. She will marry me tomorrow.
She has no other choice.
Isabelle has lost.
And that's what it took to make us happy.
To save her.
So I could finally say the simple words I'd held back so long.
I love her.
I find again I've got the bad roll.
How do you mean?
This letter.
Have you written it to me or to your aunt? For her to read or me?
Then the marriage could be better secured, which would in every single way
be your most perfect triumph.
You knew it. That I would call.
You knew it, that I would be in need of you.
You readied the final blow. That's of course very reasonable.
I have made you a monster.
I've got to go, my friend.
I have to go to Versailles.
[sighs]
[door opens, closes]
[Isabelle] My dear Valmont. My great Valmont. My Eternal.
I had until now seen Versailles only through some pale etchings.
But I forbid myself emotion on arrival.
[door opens]
[indistinct chatter]
You and your aunt promised me the worst.
The situation was desperate. My insolence made it worse still.
But I had no fear.
Maybe I was enjoying my last steps as a free woman.
[indistinct chatter]
But I dared to look the greatest of kings in the face.
Your Majesty.
I was headed to the gallows, certain of my destiny.
Yet the man I saw in front of me was only a man among other men.
Your aunt was there,
playing a sinister role that did not particularly suit her.
She who had taught me never to open my heart.
Without her, I wouldn't be who I am.
[indistinct conversation]
At this great impostor's ball, I fit in perfectly.
And I donned perhaps for the last time, the costume of the Marquise de Merteuil.
The loving wife of a great warrior in the service of the kingdom,
-and its influence across the Atlantic. - [speaking indistinctly]
[tense tone plays]
Madame, I recognize a few virtues particularly important to me in you.
Courage, without which you wouldn't have dared come all this way here.
To Versailles. And passion.
A raw force that channeled at the service of a just cause, is noble.
And vibrates. And then inspires. It reveals even the saddest soul.
And of course, most importantly.
In you I detect the most gracious of qualities.
-Sincerity. -[scoffs]
Merci for coming to me. Madame la Marquise.
Isabelle de Merteuil.
[gradually ascending intense tune]
[Isabelle] My love, I would like to write here
that in that moment, I knew that I had become essential to the kingdom,
that I had saved my title by convincing the king to make me the equal
of his ministers, the instrument of his will.
But what I saw in the eyes of this man, King only by God's grace,
seemed of a much more familiar nature to me.
Prince or slave, all men are equal in the face of desire.
The next day, a steward came to explain to me,
in excruciating detail and concern for precision,
the role that was now going to be mine.
As the first courtesan of his majesty, I will have to learn everything from him.
All his little habits and his great appetites.
The king will be bored no longer.
My love.
I cannot help but think again and again about the night we spent together.
-[both grunting] -[swords clashing]
[both grunt]
[panting]
[intense music playing]
[vibrato intensifying]
[panting]
[yells]
[grunts]
[Danceny grunts]
[Velmont grunts]
[grunts, panting]
[ethereal vocalizing]
[ragged breathing]
[thuds]
[Isabelle] My love, I would also like to tell you how much I miss you.
But I can only repeat the words through these letters
that you will never read.
I have made a vow to be sincere.
[object clatters]
And the truth is that your death satisfies me as it devastates me.
Because now you will never betray me.
♪ I heard there was a secret chord ♪
♪ That David played And it pleased the Lord ♪
♪ But you don't really care for music Do you? ♪
♪ And it goes like this The fourth, the fifth ♪
♪ The minor fall and the major lift ♪
♪ The baffled king composing Hallelujah ♪
♪ Hallelujah ♪
♪ Your faith was strong, but you needed proof ♪
♪ You saw her bathing on the roof ♪
♪ Her beauty in the moonlight Overthrew you ♪
♪ She tied you to her kitchen chair She broke your throne, she cut your hair ♪
♪ And from your lips She drew the Hallelujah ♪
♪ Hallelujah ♪
♪ Well, baby, I've been here before ♪
♪ I've seen this room And I've walked this floor ♪
♪ You know, I used to live alone Before I knew you ♪
♪ And I've seen your flag On the marble arch ♪
♪ And love is not a victory march ♪
♪ It's a cold And it's a broken Hallelujah ♪
[Isabelle] My love, I may have finally been the more wicked of us both.
And that suits me.
Because it gives me the strength I need to survive.
♪ Hallelujah ♪
Forever ruthless.
And forever impenetrable.
♪ Well, there was a time when you let me know ♪
♪ What's really going on below ♪
♪ But now you never show that to me, Do you? ♪
♪ But remember when I moved in you ♪
♪ And the holy dove was moving too ♪
♪ And every breath we drew Was Hallelujah ♪
♪ Hallelujah ♪