It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Giovanni Pastrone's grand-scale storytelling of a lost princess, her journey from being kidnapped to almost being offered as a child sacrifice and then ending up as a slave, 'Cabiria' is cinema's first true epic. Pastrone made several films, and the scope and spectacle of his films inspired directors like Griffith and Fellini, but 'Cabiria' is the only one which has stood the test of time. And since the story is set almost 2000 years ago, the aged quality of this 100-year-old film only adds to the feel of the time.Like Griffith's 'Birth of a Nation', 'Cabiria' too was shrouded in controversy for its biased depiction of races, places and cultures. Like 'Birth of a Nation' propagated Ku Klux Klan's nobility and agenda, 'Cabiria' tried to legitimize Italy's distant past, and tried to promote and inspire themes like 'wars of conquest', Roman salute, racial nobility and virtue, etc. I mean, all the non-Roman characters in the film are depicted in negative light.Whatever the controversial history the movie might have, if one is ready to ignore those aspects and try to acknowledge the feat it tries to achieve in the medium of filmmaking, it's an enjoyable journey. The movie offers many fascinating sequences, like, the child offerings at Temple of Moloch, Princess Sophonisba's pet leopard and even her spectacular arrival for her almost wedding, soldiers and elephants crossing the Alps, the pyramid formed by soldiers and shields in one continuous shot, and few others.The original version is said to have been three hours long. I saw the truncated 1993 restoration, which is two hours long. In this itself, the number of characters and events seem too many, a few of them almost unnecessary; I wonder what the extra 60 minutes had in store. Better editing (I mean, even shorter than two hours) could have made the story tighter, more interesting and compelling.Overall, it's an interesting story and a well-made film, and personally, I liked it much more than the overrated 'Ben-Hur'.

Imagine Pericles, Shakespeare's surreal drama, recast with a young female lead, and with the epic factor amped up to 11: elephants, volcanos, death cults and all the horrors of the Punic Wars, and you have Cabiria.It takes a particular self-distancing aptitude to appreciate silent films in our age as more that curiosities. For the most part, they fall into two categories: flat filmed melodrama that predates the sound era, and visual extravaganza that takes full advantage of the form.Metropolis and The Nibelungen are examples of the latter. Thankfully, so is Cabiria.Cabiria takes you - and let us not forget, the undoubtedly spellbound audience of 1914 - on a visual journey that would have been impossible on stage, showing a sophistication in its characterization, mise-en-scene, art direction and effects that is well ahead of its time. More importantly, it is a compelling tale of adventure. A silent film today's audience could actually enjoy!A word about access: I love watching people's reaction to the Eureka Blu-Ray of Fritz Lang's Metropolis. People think silent films were meant to look all soft and scratched. it is truly a wondrous thing to see these films as they were meant to be seen. Doing so for Cabiria is a bit harder: the Kino DVD transfer is far from ideal, and the imposed piano score does little justice to the scale of the film. An easy solution is to mute the audio on your DVD player or TV and patch in something grandiose, like Wagner's Ring...In any case, if you love films and are curious about their history, try this one on for size.

There are a great many silent films that deserve to be seen today, not only for their historical importance (or curiosity), but for their qualities as a well made film. Released in Italy in 1914, this first great epic film surely inspired D.W. Griffith to expand his vision, scope and sets for 'Intolerance' (1916), and influenced other film makers, including Ernst Lubitch for his 'Das Weib des Pharao' ('The Wife of Pharoah') (1922), as well as prepared audiences for other American films like 'Ben Hur' (1922), and 'The 10 Commandments' (1923). It's a spectacular epic feast of costumes, sets, and film making techniques.But as a well made film, it also has action and a good story, though for those who've forgotten their World History and the Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage (I only encountered them in my high school third year Latin class), it may be boring, because it is awfully long. This may be why 43% of IMDb votes were a 1, but you really have to give this film its due. The story moves along; the sacrifice of children to Moloch is just one of many amazing sets, scenes and 'action packed thrills.' Allowing for the fact that sound was not yet a part of film making, the director had the actors convey a lot of 'dialog' through mimed gestures, with some acting drawing too much from the staginess of Italian opera. But we get Bartolemo Pagani in his initial portrayal of Maciste, a role he played in 25 films! Looks like he was wearing blackface to look African-- and it turns out he was. He steals most of his scenes.This is clearly a landmark film of the teen years and must be seen. I give it an 8.

This is one grand looking and made movie, with plenty of mass sequences, impressive sets and costumes and a story that just screams epic.It's pretty nice to see how some early film-makers got influenced by this movie. Film-makers such as Fritz Lang, D.W. Griffith, who were also all pioneers by themselves. They were obviously inspired by some of the sequences, its scale, sets and compositions, since this movie in some of its sequences show some definite similarities to some sequences in movies such as "Metropolis" and "Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages". Only in that regard you can already call this movie an innovative and important movie. Its sets, compositions and just overall way of story-telling were all quite new and innovating for its time. It's also the first ever movie to use a dolly-track system, which provides the movie with a couple of nice moments as well.The movie its story is very epic, since it's set at many different locations, with also many different characters. It features historical well known figures such as Hannibal, Hasdrubal, Scipio, Archimede, Massinissa, which makes the movie real interesting but is also one of its weaker points, since it makes the movie and its story-telling a bit disjointed at parts.It perhaps also makes the movie feel overlong in parts, even though the movie is only about 2 hours long (well, depending on which version you'll watch), which is actually quite short for an epic movie, especially for one that got made early in the 20th century. 4 hour epics from the same time period are no rarity. The movie just goes on for a bit too long with some of its sequences. After a while you get the point but the scene will just go on and on. It doesn't always makes this an easy but pleasant movie to watch.But overall the movie of course is pleasant as well as impressive, not only because of its visuals but also because of its story that is actually quite adventurous, as long as it knows to focus on the movie its key players. It's adventurous in the same way as a movie like "Ben-Hur" for instance.Also especially when you realize that this is an 1914 movie, it's a real excellent, innovative and interesting, fun movie to watch.8/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/