‘The Last Duel’ showcases an exhibition of human nature as well as a showdown of men vie against women in the area of equality despite that they are not competing on the real battlefield.

The film took place in the 14^th century in France, the main plot is to depict how two knights’ gratitude and grudges culminated in a duel with a woman in-between. Ever in human history, the triangle relationship is the most complicated one with no remedy. Sir Jean de Carrouges and Jacques Le Gris these two knights are once friends with each other with Jean having saved Gris’s life as proof when once they fought in a battle for their King. They are very good comrades in arms until Gris afterwards exerts himself to feather his nest with some harmful deeds he has intentionally done to Jean. They fall out with each other a lot and none of them takes concessions, and when Jean’s wife Marguerite accuses Gris of raping her, these two brothers officially pave their road to a deadly duel.

The movie has employed the film technique of Rashomon, having three chapters of account respectively narrated by the above-mentioned three main characters. Which one is true can be correctly judged finally, for the account of rape is narrated unanimously in those three chapters. And, the effect of those three chapters narrated tells us human nature has immense weaknesses needing to improve.

Females in the Medieval time were enormously inferior to males, in those days women were required to be absolutely submissive when they encountered injustice from men even in the cases they were raped. In the film, Marguerite shows us her bravery to restore fairness in her life by adamantly suing the man who has raped her. It is a risk to life, if nothing can prove she is raped, she would be charged with malicious accusation with a punishment of ripping off all her clothes and hair, and then hanging and burning alive. Even now with established laws in many places, it is not easy for women to win in rape cases, not to mention those days in Medieval time when men held the domination of the world.

My sentiment is, that I could see the reason Marguerite adamantly sues Gris is not only her courage but also her fighting for justice. The story goes that when Gris finishes raping her in a ruthless, violent, rude, and bearish way, he warns her not to tell her husband about it but keep quiet, adding that if her husband knows she is raped, she must get killed by him (her husband), meaning men are to subjugate women without any woman can resist. I felt sick when I witnessed such a scene with such a conversation said by such a man who has just raped a woman, how could he, without a dose of humanity and shame, be a human when he thinks men are competent to be the dominator of the world? Furthermore, I could tell Marguerite feels raped; however, she all the more feels bullied when she hears what the man warns her. Amazingly, Marguerite has bravely sent us a correct message telling the world we cannot be bullied in the first place, all the more we cannot be bullied without afterward putting up resistance.

The whole film gives a lot of expression to the conflicts stemming from unfairness between two sexes in those days that have us learn and realize that today’s world is in fact a lot better and has progressed in the area of equality despite that there is still a lot of room to improve in some places.