La Reine Margot

I will always think of this as a 'Mikko movie' - not least because you and Maggie and a bunch of old Varangians were avowed fans long before you showed it to me.

I remember feeling thick and stupid as I watched it with you that first time: the wars of religion in England were barely touched on in my history classes in school; and the European blood feuds between Catholic and Hugenot were absent entirely. You tried to teach me, patient but so full of knowledge that you intimidated me (I never told you that, did I?), and I'd just crack the shits and retreat to some book that you'd helpfully offered, or to try to find some potted history on the internet that would help it all make sense. You'd giggle and call me a goose and eventually I'd come back to the doona on the couch and you, and we'd demolish all the popcorn (made 'from scratches' of course!)

But you persevered and we watched it again, and yet again, and each time I understood a little more and grew to love it too. You never tired of replaying it either - eyes glued to every scene, from gruesome naked violence to most artful court intrigue, this visual feast underpinned in vital subtitles, for neither of us spoke enough French to understand it otherways.

I own a copy now - and you'd be proud of how my French has developed, although given your stubborn refusal to tackle the language (your temper and reactions so like my own on topics where it was me that knew more - you goose!) you mightn't have been able to share my giggles over scenes where the polite words on screen bear no resemblance to the bawdy dialogue.

Ants has watched it with me, and mostly just bugged his eyes out at the shots of genitals - there are more than a few! I'm not sure he listened to my tentative explanations of the story behind the massacre that St Bartholemew's night, or if I even made sense, so tentative was I, wanting to explain but wrapped up in memories of my own sense of thick stupidity and hoping I wasn't being too intimidating...

It's still a cracking film. I think I'm going to have to collect them all...