Film: Napoleon
I'm back to Ireland for the weekend again. And yes, the film of choice was still Napoleon - same time as the last time I was back, same place. I just hoped I'd manage to get to it this time - I didn't book it, just in case..
So, I left 20 minutes earlier. It's hard to get away, you know - what with running errands for my mother, then trying to grab a bite to eat. Sure enough, a few bottlenecks in town added the same half hour to my journey - at least I got to stare at Limerick's new Christmas market for a while! Never known them to have one before.
Mercifully, when I did finally get to the cinema, traffic wasn't as heavy as before - and yay, as I was trawling the car park, looking for a space, someone was just pulling out. So, when I got in, I was only 10 minutes after the scheduled time. I hadn't booked, of course, so spent some time running around all the ticket machines - not one of which seemed to be working! I ran up to the cash till, bought a ticket there, and some chocolate. Ran to the screen - I was lucky to catch this, it's now in one of the smaller screens, so can't be showing for much longer - and was I delighted, when I opened the door, to see an ad playing. Sure enough, they ran ads for another five minutes.
I found my seat easily enough, which was right in front of someone - but despite showing up as unbookable when I was choosing, the entire row was empty, so I took the next one over. The lights were off when I arrived, so I couldn't see how crowded it was - but it became more so when a group of lads, patently under the age rating for the film, came in, during it. To be fair, they were quiet enough for most of it - and it's not a particularly quiet and reflective film anyway.
Right - much has been made of the film's historical inaccuracies. To be fair, by and large they're not what I'd call massive - he never used the pyramids for target practice, he wasn't a great horseman, as depicted, he didn't tend to fight at the front, as depicted. Funnily enough, in the film, Wellington (played in a very gentlemanly manner by Rupert Everett) muses that generals don't fight from the front. The Battle of Austerlitz is falsely depicted as taking place on a frozen lake - it didn't, but this does allow for more dramatic effect when Napoleon shoots cannonballs at it, breaking the ice and sending the enemy armies to a watery grave. He never actually met Wellington, nor set foot in England - not the first time historical meetings have been fabricated. He wasn't actually present at Marie Antoinette's execution - well, that's hardly a big deal. Oh, and he didn't actually "come from nothing", as in the tagline. Just exaggeration.
Big deal, frankly. You're an idiot if you let that lot stop you from seeing what is a cracker of a film. I'm not into war films, not into action films - but Ridley Scott has made a war film unlike any other. Someone described them as the best battle scenes he'd ever seen - I would describe them as actually balletic. The entire film is peppered with gorgeous music. And it's not many war films I can think of that leave me humming a waltz as I come out. As to the gore - yes, it's there, but not what I'd call excessive.
Meanwhile, Joaquin Phoenix, predictably, steps easily into Napoleon's shoes, giving an intense and captivating performance. His love affair with Joséphine is central to the film - she's played by Vanessa Kirby, who many think stole the film. It's a cracker of a film - highly recommended. I suspect there won't be much else for me to see over Christmas - at the recent meeting of the London Horror Film Club, someone said he'd just seen Wonka. I told someone that later, who remarked that it didn't sound too horrific - but I guess there simply wasn't much else!
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