Focusing on the early days of a man who (devastated and) changed the face of a whole continent, from military school cadet to conqueror of Italy,
Napoléon is a film as bold, extravagant, innovative and legendary as its subject. Abel Gance's deliberate choosing of myth over history and of scopic sensation over explanatory narrative provide for a formidable dream-like experience of ambition, warfare and politics.
