Cabiria Review

       I found the film Cabiria a lot more interesting and entertaining than I first assumed it would be. I had never watched a silent movie beforehand and was admittedly apprehensive. But it had a lot of great qualities I hadn't expected, such as the well done score, grandiose sets, and much faster pace and plot. Even the editing, though old, was still really impressive and had me wondering how they did it at times. I really enjoyed the large scale shot of the ships burning and people running-- the film really knew how to do destruction well! I also had to acknowledge the quality difference from the 1913 Antony and Cleopatra we had seen a bit of before. The text was much more legible, gave more time to fully read it, and fit the plot and characters well, which made me forget at times the movie was a silent one at all.

      Though, there were also things that did stand out in less than positive ways. It makes sense for a film made over 100 years ago to contain very outdated themes, but the sexist and racist tones of the film were still uncomfortable at the best of times. The portrayal of the few female characters throughout the film wasn't great, for example the supposed main character Cabiria being dragged everywhere, both as a child and adult. And the nuance given to deepen her character were scenes of her either resisting wanting men or serving/helping others. And, in the end, her happy ending didn't even feel like her own, but Fulvius'. As for the racist tones, the large amount of blackface is one of the most evident examples. And not only this, but every black character seemed to be there to serve the white ones-- Or if in a leading role were just there as comic relief. Any time the film wanted to communicate "bad" or "scary" elements of the film, they would go out of their way to make the set, themes, and people look as foreign as possible. All of this is absolutely reflective of the time the film was made, as well as the time period it was depicting, but it doesn't necessarily stop it from standing out and being a little uncomfortable.

- Annabelle

Comments

  1. DrKSeptember 5, 2023 at 1:08 PM

    Thanks for this balanced review, Annabelle. What I find interesting that one of the blackface helper characters, Maciste, then became so popular that he was made the star of dozens of his own movies.

    ReplyDelete

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