Zoya Amrit

‘Napoleon’ is an intricate, if confused, portrait of a legend and tyrant

“Napoleon” (2023) opens with an idea written in the shades of the French tricolor: “The people are driven by misery into revolution … and brought back to misery by revolution.” This cyclic statement on history is mirrored in the film, which begins with the public and ostentatious beheading of Marie Antoinette and ends with the quiet, whimpering death of Napoleon Bonaparte. The sequences in between depict revolution, battle, death, politics and the intricacies of a tumultuous relationship that carries through the film.