“The movie feels old, and by that I mean older than 1914. It feels like a view of ancient times, or at least of those times as imagined a century ago. We are looking into two levels of a time machine. Silent films in general create a reverie state for me; sound films are more realistic, more immediately gripping, but in a silent film I find myself dreamier, more drawn into meditations about the nature of life and time. These people are all dead, but here they are as they were on that day in 1914, boldly telling a story in a new medium, trusting it would reach audiences all over the world, and little suspecting that 92 years later moviegoers would still be climbing to the top of another palace, the one at Cannes, to see them.”

‘Cabiria’, directed by Giovanni Pastrone in 1914 is an Italian silent historical drama set during the Second Punic Wars during the second century BC. A wealthy family live on Sicily in the shadow of Mount Etna. When it erupts the family are separated and the daughter, Cabiria, flees the city. She ends up captured by pirates and taken to Carthage where the locals attempt to sacrifice her to Moloch. Meanwhile, two Roman spies work to further Rome’s interests and one becomes obsessed with the girl. It’s a spectacular but flawed epic. The look of the movie: the sets, costumes and special effects are extraordinary. ‘Cabiria’ includes one of the earliest examples of a moving camera, although in the movie this is subtle and not used to the greatest effect. The stunts as well are great and, with the presumably relaxed safety regulations at the time, genuinely tense. Highlights are the scenes set in the Temple of Moloch, the sacrificial statue both awe-inspiring and creepy, there are also dream sequences that include a very modern approach to psychology, and a stunt involving a pyramid of Roman soldiers enabling Fulvius, the spy, to break into the city of Carthage. Where the film is flawed is in its political edge: the writer, an Italian nationalist called Gabriele d’Annunzio, used the story as a way of demonising the inhabitants of the Ottoman North African provinces, turning this piece of epic spectacle into blunt propaganda. But this doesn’t entirely detract from the scale and thrilling drama of the film.

Would I recommend it? Yes – it’s big, brash and full of surprisingly inventive and innovative moments. Watch in a double bill with either D. W. Griffith’s ‘Intolerance’ or, for more fun, ‘The Thief of Bagdad’