Napoleon, Ridley Scott’s epic about the rise and fall of the military genius and French emperor, is a visually stunning film. With sweeping battle sequences that move from snow-covered Russian landscapes to the rainswept fields of Waterloo, and romance and intrigue unfolding in the opulent corridors of French aristocracy, the film leaves you with a sense of awe.
But there is also a sense of disconnect with its staccato portrayal, which moves from incident to incident and battlefield to battlefield with not much insight into the mind of the man himself. It leaves you wondering if this film, which covers the major events in Napoleon Bonaparte’s life between 1789 and 1821, may have worked better as a series.
Led capably by Joaquin Phoenix as the titular figure, Napoleon gains immensely from its talented cast, with Vanessa Kirby’s turn as Josephine, Napoleon’s love interest, being a highlight. A widowed aristocrat with two children, Kirby's Josephine is, in turns, beguiling, manipulative, submissive and domineering.
Phoenix is fascinating to watch as he switches from hard-headed tactician and ambitious leader to jealous lover and insecure husband. And their scenes together are some of the most emotionally engaging moments of the film. Unfortunately, the film never delves any deeper and if there are more layers to the relationship between Napoleon and Josephine, it is glossed over to make time for the main story — told often with artistic liberty than historical accuracy —- of Napoleon's life to unfold.
The film hints at Napoleon’s affections bordering on obsession to the extent that he deserts his troops in Egypt to put an end to Jospehine’s affairs with other men, but it never goes into the why of it. Josephine’s affections for Napoleon, on the other hand, feel calculated. A way to gain security, for sure, but is she also power hungry? Who is she when she is not indulging her husband’s childishness? We never get to find out.
The same skimming-over happens with all the politicking going on in post-French Revolution France. Important names are highlighted in text on screen but it feels more like ticking the box and taking Napoleon from one career highlight to another. This often makes the narrative feel rushed and the pacing uneven. The film spends minutes on an important battle sequence but not on what leads up to it or its fallout, leaving them feeling like just visual spectacles.
And that they are. Each of the three major battle sequences are distinct from each other, not just in terms of the setting but also in execution. While the battle in Toulon is all about showing grit, blood and sweat with close focus on the people, the Battle of Austerlitz feels like an artistic piece softened by snow and fog, faceless bodies and red blood swirling in water. The Battle of Waterloo is different from both of these, being filmed from a distance to show the overall scale. And there is enough limb-blowing and gut-spewing in all of these battles to make Ridley Scott fans happy.
But the film never touches upon what made Napoleon such a great strategist and military genius. We never see him planning or talking, except at the very end, about why he chose to approach a battle in one way and not another. At one point, when he returns from exile in Elba, the whole of the Fifth Army joins him, hailing him as the Emperor. So what was it about this grumpy, lumpy man that commandeered such devotion from his soldiers despite the countless lives that were lost in the Napoleonic Wars and the disaster that was the Russian conquest? We never get to see that.
There is no doubt that this biopic is entertaining and engaging, and yet it feels more like the history textbook highlight section on the life and times of Napoleon Bonaparte. The one which most of us studied in case we got asked about dates, places and names. One hopes that the four-hour director’s cut that Ridley Scott has said will be dropping on Apple TV+ will fill the gaps left by excessive editing and take the film from great to legendary.
