Rômulo & Remo: O Primeiro Rei

A film in which the origin of the foundation of Rome and the myth of Romulus and Remus merge to give shape to an epic pearl of Italian cinema whose dialogues are in Proto-Latin. A crazy, intense, primordial, realistic and exciting work.

As an Italian I'm always a little bit prejudice with italian movies. But. This one is pretty great. Certainly worth to be watched, even twice maybe. IMO a little bit too dramatical in certain detail, actors' expressions or too long on certain detailed shots. But a part from this little and forgettable stuffs, it is a great movie, with a great plot, great and well played characters. Again: worth to be watched.

Look, I'm sure the people in the past were a lot more rough round the edges than we are, especially the poor or those who were trying to survive a life or death situation. So this film captures the rawness of life back then. It revolves around a band of men trying escape certain death who just happen to be called Romulus and Remus. Because of the protagonists there is also the usual growling, snarling and slightly overdone acting here and there to contend with as modern actors try to connect to what their ancestors were like. It's a bit too much at times.

We all know the story, so it doesn't need rehashing, although this doesn't follow the myth fully. What I liked about the film was the attempt to make it as 'historical' as possible. It is after all a fictional story, Romulus probably didn't exist, it's a myth that a lot of Indo European cultures have (twins and the death of one, founding fathers being linked to gods etc) but they have tried to recreate the look and feel of Italy in 700-800BC.

The Archaic Latin dialogue was interesting too but I feel it held the film up as at times as it's guess work by the linguistic experts who advised the writers - there are whole sections of the film with no speaking, or with quite ponderous discussions - mainly because they don't know enough of the language. You feel if it was in modern Italian it would be less stilted and would flow more. Fascinating all the same.

Anyway I enjoyed the film apart from some of the gore and mumbling, long scenes. It's nice to see a different take on a historical drama.

Romulus and Remus : The First King (Il primo re) is an Italian film shot in the Latin language, featuring the story of Romulus and Remus, the legendary founding brothers of Rome. This movie, although chronicling a legend, sticks more to reality, without the nursing wolves or other fantastical elements of the legend. Instead, this film presents a real, gritty and interesting account of the tale.

I ended up enjoying this film quite a bit. The Latin language in the film is interesting; it is wonderful to hear the language on the big screen, and is almost a surreal experience, as the language is little used in other aspects of the modern world. The action is gritty, with campy blood spurts that border on comical - something I ended up enjoying and that added charm to the film. One of the big pluses for me was the feeling, atmosphere and cinematography of the film. This feels like a world steeped in myth, with individuals struggling with reality, luck and myth and the intersection between these. The portrayal of the vestal virgin and sacred fire of Rome, for example, is interesting. The vestal does not have magic powers, but instead uses cunning, curses and the intimidation of her position to influence and control events. The mist steeped forests, overflowing Tiber River, and interesting atmosphere add to this world, where myths, beliefs and legends feel concrete and real.

On the mediocre side, we have the acting. Relatively fine, but with no special performances. The way the brothers are written feels rushed, and the motivation for one brothers turn to despotic power is never really elaborated on. He just goes quickly from noble to despotic with little motivation. The actors themselves are fine, although some performances feel subdued - a possible side effect of using Latin over Italian in the filming process.

On the poor side, the story feels quite rushed here. There are many positive aspects of this film, but the story itself does not fit the wonderful atmosphere of the rest of the film, much to its detriment.

Overall, a solid 7/10. In my mind, this means the film is of good quality and I enjoyed my time with it. I could easily recommend this film for fans of Roman history, or those looking for a good ancient action drama with some cool apsects to it. Worthy of a watch for sure.

This film isn't as striking as Revenant or as thematically deep as Valhalla Rising, but it sure gets close.

I didn't choose to mention those two titles casually. Il Primo Re uses a similar range of storytelling devices: minimal dialogues, stunning visuals, a very realistic environment, metaphysical experiences. This provides the film a very immersive style, that can be perceived probably a bit slow, but that also elevates the release's quality.

The interesting part is that Il Primo Re reinterprets a well-known myth but stays faithful to its roots, and merges is with realistic historical settings. The villages, armaments, religions depicted mostly are very close to those that could've been during the pre-roman period.Obviously Il Primo Re mustn't be considered a historically accurate film, but it certainly gives the feel of that archaic period.

What I particularly appreciated was the choice of using latin as language. It is not the first time this happens, an example is Mel Gibson's The Passion, but in The Passion the pronunciation that was used was the scolastic one, which was developed in the middle ages (and I personally know that from my high-school studies of the language). In Il Primo Re they managed to use the original pronunciation of latin, and I believe probably they adopted an archaic vocabulary and sintax, which is admirable.

Criticisms can be drawn: the final climax is not that huge as the build up suggests (let's not forget italian films have a much more limited budget), it doesn't manage to be as thematically deep as the films I've mentioned earlier and sometimes it drastically shifts to being an action movie. I personally acknowledge these negatives, but still feel that the positive aspects outweight the negative ones. This film is so far unique in italian cinema, it definitely attempts at being something new, and therefore I think it deserves consideration