Review of Cabiria (1914) by Richard P — 22 May 2012

Astonishing silent epic about the Punic Wars, much of which anticipates the Babylon sequences in Griffith's "Intolerance". The scale is enormous, but it manages not to alienate because it sticks to a fairly straightforward linear narrative that deals with characters and events on their own terms rather than trying to make them overtly conceptual and symbolic (the key word being "overtly"; this is also a film about the barbarousness of North African culture contrasted with the enlightened Roman world - but the film is almost a century old, and roughly the same thing is true of "300", vintage 2007, so I'm willing to cut it some slack).

The set pieces - Hannibal crossing the Alps, the sacrifices to Moloch, the battle sequences - still hold up today, as the more static camera work lets the audience take in the scope and choreography.