Napoleon

Originally published on 01/12/23 on Letterboxd

Occupies an odd midpoint between antique sex comedy and fire-and-brimstone period epic.
A curious film to view through Scott's background as a painter, in that the landscapes recall the Boucher-inspired compositions of films like Barry Lyndon and Scott's own The Duellists, and yet the film is simultaneously acutely aware of the deceptive, self-aggrandising nature of portraiture. Continues the Late Ridley mainstay of masculine
Bacchanalia being violently snuffed out, with the feminine interest having the last word. Rather difficult to comprehend the argument that Scott is a mere journeyman when so many of his films from just the past decade have wrestled with the bloody consequences of man’s deadly hubris.