The Emperor's New Clothes (2001) Reviews

• This is good old-fashioned romance, history, and fiction all in one small but unforgettable film, a bit like the subject himself.

  jdesando2002-07-12

  In 1821, on St. Helena, Napoleon loyalists switch the emperor with a look-alike ship hand and send the little tyrant secretly off to Paris to revive the Old Order. I love improbable movies like `The Emperor's New Clothes,' especially the docudramas that feed our lust to know the insides of great figures. You may not know Ian Holm's Napoleon that well because Holm concentrates more on the mannerisms than the script. Yet the best lines are good, such as when the emperor, disguised as a seaman, boards a ship and says, "A position above decks would have been more appropriate.' Or when his love interest, Pumpkin, responds after he tells her his true identity: "You're not Napoleon! I hate Napoleon! He has filled France with widows and orphans! He took my husband. I won't let him take you." There are truths there to make a revolution. Our hero tries his hand at selling melons, marshalling his crew with his great leadership rhetoric, and wins the love of Pumpkin, her son, and himself after 6 years of humiliating, loveless exile. When the film opens with the young son showing colored slides of the emperor's life on a primitive projector, you can feel the romance and the warmth for the rest of the film. When you wake with Napoleon on ship to see a stunning sunrise, you know Alessio Gelsini Torresi is a cinematographer worth watching. This sweet film, softly extolling the grandeur of simple love, takes it final cue from Candide, where that weary traveler laid his weary heart in his garden. This Napoleon had said, "I place my trust in only two things: my will and the love of the people of France." He finds now a redemptive will to survive and, without egotism or violence, a love of one person to satisfy an empire. This is good old-fashioned romance, history, and fiction all in one small but unforgettable film, a bit like the subject himself.

• A forgotten gem

  rebeljenn2005-11-16

  I watched the first screening of 'The Emperor's New Clothes' at the London Film Festival. The film seemed to disappear from the public eye after that, even though I personally thought that it was a good film. In summary, this film is about Napoleon who wants to get his lost power back, and he pretends he is a peasant in order to eventually rise up and seize it. During this time, he meets a woman he falls in love with. The film explores how his life evolves over the longing of love and power, and there is the realization that he cannot achieve both. This film is moving and witty. One of the most memorable scenes was when Napoleon tries to convince others that he is Napoleon, but he is not believed, and they take him to an asylum where there are many others there that believe that they are Napoleon. I was surprised that this film did not get respected; it is a forgotten gem.

• Outstanding!

  skleid62005-07-26

  This is a carefully crafted, beautifully acted "what if" story about Napoleon Bonaparte. It is literate, inventive, and has a beautiful music score to boot. The female lead, Iben Hjejle, is a revelation! I wish she would make more films outside of Denmark. The story centers around Napoleon's exile after Waterloo, and a plot to have him escape (using a double), return to France to raise an army and regain his throne. But something unforeseen happens along the way, when his double, back on St. Helena, decides he is enjoying being Emperor Napoleon too much to give it up. That leaves the real Emperor Napoleon, secretly back in Paris, with a problem: nobody believes he is who he says he is... Let's not reveal any more of the plot in this outstanding film (provided you can enjoy a movie with no nudity and cursing, and virtually no violence).

• Vastly entertaining and thoughtful whimsy...Ian Holm once again demonstrates his range...being both hilarious and hauntingly human.

  martylee13045burlsink3422002-07-29

  Magical arthouse gem (released here on Paramount's "Classic" label) which deserves a wider release...and rescue from the curse of small theater presentation...(I saw it improperley masked on a tiny screen which appeared to have a very vociferous nest of fledglings behind it...and the film still glowed...my first raves have to be for the superb photography and inspired digital wizardy which made the audience's journey back to 1821 so enchantingly real). Very clever and charming script manages to manipulate the myths, legends, and cliches surrounding Historys favorite mini meglomaniac and find a spark of humanity missing from most movie representations (except for Abel Gance's masterpiece...which is beautifully saluted in this movie's final snowy scene). Ian Holm sinks into the role of the exciled emperor and the burlesque turn of the galley swabber recruited to impersonate him with equal aplomp...(to be honest I would have relished a bit more of the impersonators delicious descent into debauchery). Excellent supporting performances, beautiful score, and unique unsentimental portrait of the period (with unvarnished representations of 1820's undertaking, hygine, and nontreatment of mental illness). A film to treasure if just for the gentle subtlety of it's central romance...including a tryst on a rooftop overlooking Paris during a thunderstorm which ranks as one of the loveliest shots in years. A sweet smart little gem which belongs in the collection of every cinema connosuire

• Great, touching fun

  landgazer2002-07-17

  A big measure of how I rate a movie comes from how I feel at the end of it. I was feeling really good after this one. Quick plot outline: Napoleon (an awesome Ian Holm) is exiled on the isle of St. Helena, but someone has been found who looks exactly like him. So he has concocted a simple plan: have him and the look-alike switch places, and then after Napoleon arrives in Paris, have the fake announce to the world that he is a fraud, in essence telling the world Napoleon has escaped and therefore paving the way for Napoleon to return to the throne. But the plan doesn't go as predicted: the ship Napoleon travels on sails by France for one, and the fraud is not quick to give up his oh-so dreary exile. When Napoleon does arrive in Paris, as per the plan, he stays with Madame Truchaut, the wife (Iben Hjejle) of a now deceased soldier who had started a fruit-selling business after his military career had ended. Napoleon and Madame Truchaut get to know each other and her kindness begins to chip away at his hardened heart. Needless to say while this is happening, the fake is not quick to tell to the world he is an impostor as he's been cleaning the poop decks of Napoleon's ships for years. And the real Napoleon begins to see the real cost that his reign cost France. The basic story is not new but it is done really well. Ian Holm is a VERY believable Napoleon, always walking like a soldier, talking in a straight and curt manner, and in general giving the impression he was born in a war room. He's also quite funny as Eugene Lenormand, the fake who's playing Napoleon. The film could have easily been a flop - mixing a love story with Napoleon is obviously a sticky wicket. But it doesn't get too serious for it's own good, or too funny. It's a great mix. The film doesn't spend too much time on the fake, which it easily could have for laughs. The story is about the real Napoleon, and it stays focused. There is also a great scene where a rival for Madame Truchaut's affections, a doctor (an unctuous Tim McInnerny), tricks Napoleon into coming to a mental institution, where Napoleon sees a whole bunch of crazies pretending to be him. He looks at himself: is this the legacy he left France? Is he looking at himself and not liking what he sees? It's a cool scene. It makes it all the more powerful as the doctor knows his identity, and seems to get a twisted yet humbling satisfaction from humiliating and defeating the great Napoleon, not to mention freeing up Madame Truchaut for himself. But I was still smiling a lot through the movie, and that's something I don't find a lot these days. Maybe you will too. Highly recommended.