August 1715. After going for a walk, Louis XIV feels a pain in his leg. The next days, the king keeps fulfilling his duties and obligations, but his sleep is troubled and he has a serious fever. He barely eats and weakens increasingly. This is the start of the slow agony of the greatest king of France, surrounded by his relatives and doctors.

Catalan director Albert Serra’s follow-up to his magisterial The Death of Louis XIV is another forensic documentation of the Sun King’s final breaths. Here, however, Versailles is replaced with the glow of the gallery.