The Death of Louis XIV

The Death of Louis XIV (La Mort de Louis XIV, 2016) is Albert Serra's historical drama, and you can watch it online on iFILM. Almost the entire film unfolds in a single Versailles bedchamber as the Sun King slowly fades on a canopied bed.

It begins with a sore leg after a walk in August 1715. Fever follows, then a blackening limb and growing helplessness. French New Wave icon Jean-Pierre Léaud plays the dying monarch, while court physician Fagon and a traveling quack with a miracle elixir argue over leeches and quinine bark, and the king opens his eyes less and less. Seventy-two years of power over France drain away one whispered order at a time.

Serra films the agony by candlelight in long, near-silent takes, so you keep vigil at the bedside alongside the court. This is slow, hypnotic cinema for viewers who prize painterly composition over plot and want to watch an era expire. Stream The Death of Louis XIV (2016) online on iFILM.