- Release Date: 24/11/2023
- Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Venessa Kirby, Tahar Rahim
- Director: Ridley Scott
- Writer: David Scarpa
I was absolutely pumped for this film. Napoleon! Ridley Scott! Joaquin Phoenix! What is there not to be excited about? I was jumping up and down in my seat, celebrating the fact that a film about one of my favourite generals was being made in this era, when we finally had the technology, actors and directors to realize the kind of vision for the story and the character that was necessary for a film about the life of Napoleon. I had enjoyed Ridley Scott’s ‘The Last Duel’, and I was confident that even at 85 years old, his directing career was experiencing some kind of resurgence when it came to his art and ability to direct massive period classics.
Napoleon was slated to be written by David Scarpa who had previously written ‘All the Money in the World’ for Scott, another film that I liked quite a bit. All I wanted from this film was for it to showcase the military genius, genesis, and a faithful character portrait of Napoleon. In addition, I expected large-scale and historically accurate recreation of some of the greatest victories of the general like Toulon, Austerlitz and even Waterloo where he unfortunately met with defeat.
Cringeworthy fictional romance:
To my utter dismay, the film turned out to be about a disgusting fictional romance between Napoleon and his wife Josephine, who was nothing more than a footnote in the General’s illustrious life and career, with most details available about her being from fictional accounts and documents. The film dedicates so much time and attention to the relationship between Napoleon and Josephine that it forgets everything else that made Napoleon the man we remember him for. If that was not enough, the film asserts that Napoleon did great things and conquered the world because he wanted to impress Josephine.
The makers don’t stop at that. They make Napoleon confess in a scene to Josephine that he was nothing without her. Sadly, neither the film nor any other account available about Josephine tells us anything that would account for the kind of reverence that the makers forcefully extract from Napoleon for Josephine. Even if their chemistry had felt real and affecting, the film would have had something to offer. Unfortunately, even that is not a thing. The efforts at comedy, which I don’t understand why the world is going gaga about, were equally pathetic. In the end, it was the exploration of this unnecessary angle in Napoleon’s life that marred the flow of the narrative and all that could have been achieved with this film in the first place.
Where are Napoleon’s fiery speeches?
Napoleon was known for his fiery speeches and his ability to make his troops, and even citizens, rally with him. I was hoping for the film to be peppered with numerous memorable dialogues and quotes that would be rousing and inspiring. The writers wouldn’t even have to write these. They could be picked up from so many of his memoirs, accounts by others, and even fictional accounts. No, that was something that was probably too much for the makers to do, since that would, for once, make Napoleon the larger-than-life character that he was and would come in the way of their deconstruction and humanizing the man by making him behave like an uncultured brute and a horndog who was ready to consummate with his wife and even others at the slightest instigation or sometimes, no instigation at all.
The lack of focus on Napoleon’s ability with words and their impact on people and key situations renders some of the sequences of the film unbelievable, as we do not understand why people would take him for such a hero even though he has done nothing to deserve the honour. Some other key moments from the man’s life that documented his oratory skills and his leadership ability are simply dropped from the film. What we get instead is him making love with his wife under the dining table in the full view of his palace guards.
An utter indifference to Napoleon’s heroism in war and politics:
The Napoleonic Wars are a matter of study and research at various military academies around the world and even at universities and colleges, where people try to decipher the magic of strategy and reacting to challenges with grit and intelligence. It was Napoleon who introduced the concept of the Corps in the military, and each of his victories was just as much about the bravery and fighting skills of his men as they were about his strategy, masterful planning, and quick reactions. A biopic on Napoleon is expected to address these aspects of the emperor’s life at least, but that is not the case here. The two battles shown in the film are practically glossed over with no attention to details, strategy, or who Napoleon won or lost the battles against. I can accept the fact that the time frame and the time taken for the battles to unfold was condensed to keep the runtime under control but to not give any context to the wars was bewildering.
Napoleon’s insatiable desire to win these wars had a lot more to do with his desire to stamp his authority over the world and to gain certain strategic higher ground and not so much about impressing his queen. If one needs to learn how to portray the battles from the Napoleonic Wars, one needs to look no further than the film ‘Waterloo (1970)’, directed by Sergei Bondarchuk. That film successfully documented how to lay out Napoleon’s elaborate strategy in one of his most technical wars on the screen in a manner for everyone to understand and enjoy. The film also beautifully explained the build-up to the war, and its aftermath and also explained the inspiration of the men involved in it.
Subpar battle sequences:
While the entire world is going gaga over how beautiful the battle sequences in the film are, I beg to differ. I believe that the battle sequences in Scott’s previous films like ‘Gladiator’ and ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ were far better envisioned and executed. In ‘Napoleon’, Scott attempts to emphasize specific aspects of the war that were neither the greatest nor the defining aspect of that particular war. These aspects are emphasized just because they make for a dramatic visual representation. While this might appear alluring for those who have no idea about Napoleon’s life and wars, for someone like me who practically watches videos on YouTube about Napoleon’s victories and defeats every day as he is having his lunch or dinner, such half-hearted realization of the epic battles was nothing more than an insult to the memory of legendary warrior.
If that was not enough, you have the now infamous and ugly Hollywood approach to colour-grading war sequences that desaturates everything and turns some of the sequences in the Battle of Austerlitz and Toulon so dark that nothing is clearly visible. The Egyptian campaign, on the other hand, is characterized by an overabundance of yellow, and there are no battle sequences in this portion. Just imagine. The entire Egyptian portion has no battle sequences and is wrapped up because Napoleon learns that his wife is having an affair and this makes him rush back leaving a campaign in the middle. What a pity!
Uninspiring characterisation:
Joaquin Phoenix is a great and fearless actor, but his interpretation of the iconic figure and the way his character is written were just devastatingly underwhelming. Phoenix cannot be faulted for his performance onscreen. I am confident that this is how Ridley Scott envisioned the character to be, and Phoenix obliged, but that unfortunately results in the character being so uninspiring and boring that there is practically nothing in the film to connect with him over or be inspired by.
The character is never given any context in the film for the things that he is shown doing. We meet him for the first time in the middle of a conflict, and from there, we see him fight wars and haggle over life, love, and babies with his wife, with him occasionally going off to war and winning them. We also see him babble over politics with other leaders of the country, but since we have no idea or context of what the conflicts are about and what is the extent of the politics and history of the conflicts, we feel nothing in these sequences and conversations. This is a recurring problem throughout the film that the director doesn’t even attempt to solve. To expect Phoenix to overshadow these issues with the power of his essay is too much to ask since he is given such a one-dimensional, poorly-written, and almost incomplete character to play.
Vanessa Kirby as Josephine is forced to feel important and again suffers from the same writing issues for the character that Napoleon does. She is shown doing things that cannot be explained. Her equation with Napoleon could have been interesting, but it is reduced to a series of boring exchanges, and we never get the feeling of the hurt and torture that both the characters might be facing because of the political scenario of the nation and their inability to have a child. While the director plays out this portion extensively, he is never able to make us feel for the character, especially that of Josephine, which is a pity.
If that was not enough, the exchanges between Josephine and Napoleon are so boring and numerous that after a while, they only start acting like speed breakers for other interesting things happening in the film. The editing and transition between these exchanges and the politics and war of the film almost always feel jarring and give out a feeling that a large portion of this film has been left on the editing floor. From what I have learned, there will be a 4-hour-long cut of the film that will be released on Apple TV. I will give this film one more chance by watching that version and see if it can redeem itself with all the politics and context to the wars that this version of the narrative so desperately needed.
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Final words:
If it isn’t clear enough by now, I would like to reiterate that I was sorely disappointed by Ridley Scott’s ‘Napoleon’. Instead of calling it so, he might as well have called it ‘Josephine and Napoleon’s cringeworthy fictional romance’. That would be a more befitting title for a film that shuns every aspect of Napoleon’s personality, prowess, and history, and concentrates on things that have no historical background and deconstructs the man to feel like a clueless aggressor who went after other nations just to be away from his wife from time to time for her to have affairs so that he can then swing back home again to reprimand her about her actions and then again go back to war.
The man is reduced to a pitiful crybaby whose military genius and insatiable desire for greatness and to be a demi-god is replaced by his unwavering attempts at proving to his disinterested wife how great he was and pumping an heir out of her. It is not nearly as sad to see the great Napoleon reduced to this caricature as it is to realize that at least a chunk of the new generation will watch this film and will not care to recheck actual history and take this great man to be this loony pathetic joker who was put in his place by the other European powers lest he destroy the entire world for his desire to prove a point to a woman. Ridley Scott’s ‘Napoleon’ is like Hollywood’s ‘Jodha-Akbar’ or ‘Bajirao-Mastani’.
Rating: 1/5 (1 out of 5 Stars)
The views expressed in this article are that of the reviewer and do not reflect EastMojo’s position.
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