Kidnapped by Phoenician pirates from her Sicilian home, the infant CABIRIA grows to become involved in Rome's conflict with Carthage during the Second Punic War.
Vast, intricate in plot & completely fascinating, here is one of the great silent epics which, fortunately, lives up to its legend. Full of daring rescues & breathless escapes, the film also features innovative camerawork & lighting techniques which would greatly influence D. W. Griffith & Cecil B. DeMille. (Some viewers may also see a strong resemblance between CABIRIA and the gigantic sets & bravado action highlighted in the Douglas Fairbanks swashbucklers of the 1920's.)
Prolific director Giovanni Pastrone (1883-1959), using the pseudonym Piero Fosco, wrote the script and helped design the huge, elaborate sets, wanting to make his film the biggest, most thrilling epic ever produced. A million lira was budgeted for CABIRIA, a tremendous sum then, and location shooting was extended to Tunisia, Sicily & the Alps. The result was a tremendous success and ensured Pastrone's name would be enshrined in the history of world cinema. A true Renaissance Man, Pastrone left films in 1923 to devote himself to medical research.
The acting is often rather ripe & sensationalized, but that was the prevailing style in Italian epics, which were doubtless influenced by Grand Opera's florid stage mannerisms. Special mention should be made of Umberto Mozzato as a heroic Roman spy, Bartolomeo Pagano as the muscular Maciste & Italia Almirante-Manzini playing a wicked Carthaginian queen.
Sequences remain in the viewer's mind: the destructive eruption of Mount Etna; the truly terrifying scenes in the vile Temple of Moloch, with tiny naked children being thrown into the flames; and Hannibal's march - with elephants - over the mountains. Ancient Archimedes setting fire to the Roman fleet attacking Syracuse is unexpectedly amusing, while the movie climaxes with one of the most ostentatious suicides ever filmed.
******************************
There were three Punic Wars, which kept the ancient world embroiled from 264 BC until 146 BC while Rome & Carthage engaged in a death struggle to see who would emerge as the master of the Mediterranean. Battles raged in Europe & Africa, as well as on the Sea, but the last War ultimately ended with Rome's total victory and the complete & utter destruction of Carthage. The innocents sacrificed to the hideous Moloch were finally avenged.
