Netflix’s ‘The King’ isn’t ‘Francophobic’

I enjoyed watching the new Netflix epic, The King, which celebrated the brief life of Henry V. And it wasn’t just because of Robert Pattinson’s ‘Allo ‘Allo French accent in portraying the Dauphin. What gave me the most pleasure as I watched the French cavalry fall beneath a blizzard of arrows at Agincourt was the knowledge that the film has infuriated the French.

One of their television channels has accused Henry V of being a ‘war criminal’, while Christophe Gilliot, director of the Agincourt battlefield museum, decried the film as perpetuating the myth started by Shakespeare that Henry was a gallant chap when in fact the opposite was true. ‘The image of the French has really been tarnished, the film leaves a taste of Francophobia,’ stormed Gilliot. ‘The British far right is going to welcome this. It will delight the nationalist egos over there.’

Is the film too generous to Henry? His ruthlessness is depicted several times: for example, when he gives the order after Agincourt to kill all prisoners, or when he stabs to death a helpless Harry Hotspur in a scene that is pure Hollywood fantasy.