Movie #22 of the Brisbane International Film festival and #3 of the day after a very fast walk back up to Palace Barracks from the Tribal Cinema, was "The Queen of Versailles". This was a fascinating documentary which actually won the BIFFDocs prize on offer for best documentary at the festival. And I can see why. I was totally prepared to hate the people in this movie and find them obnoxious, but I only hated them part of the time. The other part I felt some sympathy. The filmmakers did a good job.
This documentary was filmed over a number of years, following the extremely wealthy David Siegel (who made his fortune selling time-share resorts in the US) and his wife Jacqueline who "worked her way up from nothing" and their 8 kids (7 biological, 1 niece adopted). Initially the documentary was following their quest to build the largest private residence in the US, named Versailles. What they continually called their dream home, the rest of us would call complete and utter obnoxiousness and wasteage. The home was to have something like 70 bedrooms, 30 bathrooms and kitchens, private theatre, bowling alley, grand ballroom, swimming pools, staff accommodation etc etc etc. plus ridiculous decoration and spending on marble, Edwardian furniture and the like. When it was finished, the home was estimated that it would be worth $100 million. And this was being built while they lived in an already ridiculous mansion. So yeah, I'm feeling the urge to laugh at them and hate them right now. But then something happens. The movie mainly follows Jacqui and despite her seemingly extravagant lifestyle she seems to be quite a normal and likeable person who only pulls out the designer duds for big parties (although the boob implants are on show constantly no matter what the scenario) and I find myself thinking 'she's not as bad as she seems'. Surprise #1.
The 'Riches to Rags' part of the story comes when the Global Financial Crisis hits during construction of Versailles and right after their company has built the biggest tower in Las Vegas with a wad of borrowed funds. With the banks suddenly not wanting to lend money and particularly to sub-prime borrowers, the Siegels get into trouble. They are not allowed to sell any more time share in the Vegas building, they have to make a lot of staff redundant from the business, they can barely afford the repayments on the building and their home, and now they can't borrow any more funds to finish their dream home. Boo hoo. But completely fascinating. Now we get a glimpse of what happens when the wealthy realise that it's all on paper and isn't going to feed and clothe the children. And this is where it gets difficult because you see these people who should be struggling, but their life still seems pretty good. Jacqui spends up so big on Christmas and they still try to have these big parties, but then you discover that she has not actually been told the extent of their financial problems and if she'd known she wouldn't have done it. Surprise #2. She also sends some money to help out an old school friend whose house is being foreclosed upon by the bank. Surprise #3. David though becomes a grumpy old man and starts to alienate his family while he concentrates on trying to find a solution to their issues as the GFC drags on. His own daughter seems very insightful when she says that it's like he doesn't even love Jacqui, she's more of a 'trophy' wife for the good times. You wonder why she stays with this much older man who treats her like crap. This makes me feel even more sympathy for her - surprise #4. However, their dogged pursuit of their goal to either keep Versailles, sell it unfinished for $70m or finished for $100m, and David and his son's insistence that the banks are the bad guys here (which they are but they're not the only ones - earlier he was bragging about how much money he made off suckers who buy his product) brings me back to contempt again.
This was pretty interesting stuff, particularly for anyone like me who works in the finance area and has an understanding of what it was about. You won't get any financial analysis here though, it's a story about people with more money than sense and taste, right to the end. Fascinating stuff and highly worth seeking out.
No comments:
Post a Comment