Okay the setup for this is absolutely ridiculous. Napoleon the third has overthrown the Democratic process of France after getting himself elected. Now he's proclaimed himself the Emperor of the Second Empire of France.
Louis Napoleon wants to be as well known in history as will as his great departed Uncle.
So he goes about setting up all types of power moves in order to reassociate the French with their former glory.
One of these moves is the Conqueror Mexico. An acts that he can't do directly, do one part to the Monroe Doctrine and 1 part civil unrest.
But he's given the idea that if he can put a puppet Monarch in his place, it might just be enough to keep the public at Bay and stop the Americans from having intervention.
Now in order to do this he has to create a fake plebiscite so he can insert a random Monarch that'll be loyal to him.
After much deliberation and a bit of persuasion* he chooses the brother of Emperor Franz Joseph I Maximilian, who was to become Maximilian the first of Mexico when put on the throne. All of this was done using French soldiers in a crap ton of French money. At a time when the United States couldn't do anything about it because of their Civil War.
Maximillian's rain was not popular in Mexico, it wasn't all that popular around the world and eventually ended with the Mexican Republican forces overflowing the capital (also Querétaro for the Emperor) and executing their would be Monarch. It also didn't help that at this point Louis Napoleon had lost most of his interest in Mexico and has his eyes set to other prospects.
There's also Max's wife who had returned to Europe with the prospect of finding someone that would help her husband keep his throne.
But after many failed attempts (even one involving the Pope) she found herself unavailable to help save her husband. She eventually broke down in paranoia, thinking that the world was out to get her and it probably wasn't made any better when her husband was executed.
Supposedly afterwards she got over a lot of this and may have even had an affair with some Belgian officer. But that's going outside the realm of this story.
So finally after the Tyranny that was the Empire of Mexico, Benito Juarez was made president yet again and is today commemorated as one of the most important people in Mexico.
So. How does the movie stack up to this?
Well for the most part it did an okay job. It really paints up the angle that the emperor was himself trying to be a humanitarian and wanted to bring some form of security to the Mexican people and that one of the major reasons he failed in this was a miscommunication with Benito Juarez**.
When in reality his biggest goal in life was just to maintain the throne. No matter the cost no matter the intrusion. Hence the reason he was executed in some part of the Mexican desert as opposed to getting on a boat and heading back to Europe to live out the rest of the days in the Habsburg Realm.
The movie also touches on racial issues. Having multiple occasions where a person's Authority was brought into question because they had some form of Native American blood as opposed to Spanish blood (or other Europeans for that matter). I don't know how much of this was actually prominent in the real Mexican revolutions or even under the Empire of Maximilian.
Something tells me that the Emperor's thoughts in all of this were probably indifference. Hell he probably couldn't tell the difference between an ''all Spanish'' Mexican, a Mestizo, Mesoamerican or a Zapotecs for that matter.
Now discarding all the historical context is this movie any good? Yes 100% yes. This is actually a phenomenal film.
Betty Davis's performance is spectacular, especially towards the end when her character starts to crack down and she ends up screaming at every Monarch in the film. The performance by Paul Muni*³ playing Benito Juarez is fairly enjoyable as well. He has this kind of authoritative yet quiet dignity about him.
The kind of guy who seems like he's always in control. Even when confronted by a line of bayonet armed at this face.
In fact all of the acting in this film is pretty good. Everyone's playing an over-the-top Monarch or a high-ranking officer and they all have this wonderful energy and performance to them.
A few of the people playing Mexican peasants give a little too stereotype for my liking.
They end up sounding like that little cartoon mouse who wears the sombrero.
But it's very minor and you can look past it with relative ease.
I'd argue the only bad thing about this film is that the beginning of its second act as a bit slow. That weird point where the Emperor is trying to settle into the country and we get our introductions to Benito Juarez.
But then the action starts the pickup and the dramas involving everybody become more flared as the country continuously breaks down.
Overall it's a very good dramatic little historical film. It's not horribly accurate with what happened but it's not insultingly so disconnected that it becomes complete and utter fiction.
*Much of this persuasion came from Princess Sophie of Bavaria. She was the mother to Maximilian and his brother Joseph. and for a time was argued to be the real power behind the Throne of Austria as she could easily dictate to our sun her own personal agenda. Supposedly she became distraught and disconnected with life after the death of her son Maximilian. Once again I can't really blame her for that I don't know how I'd take it either if I learned that my son was killed an execution Squad after becoming the leader of said country. still I bring up Sophie because I feel she's under-represented in Salem and another media. She's usually seen as the bitter hearted stepmother to princess CC. And in a lot of ways she was but there's a lot more to the woman than one that the eye. She was cunning and manipulative and was able to control vast swabs of European Parliament without ever holding any official counts of power.
** So obviously this isn't all that accurate with the historical documents but it's probably more accurate with what happened in real life. Miscommunication is one of the absolute biggest reasons for why so much history has happened.
Rather that be the Spanish interactions with various Aztec and other Native American tribes and the eventual Wars and Slaughter that came about because of that.
All the way down to misunderstanding certain pieces of documentation and then going to war of a country over the miss-translate of a single word. There are many wars in Europe that share that fate.
*³ Remember when Sean Connery was the only Scotsman in Highlander. And he was the one guy who ended up playing an Egyptian.
Well it turns out this film has its own equivalent. Our actual Austrian-Hungarian person of nationality Paul Muni is playing a Mexican war hero. It's kind of hilarious and much like Sean Connery he's just as good in his role here is Sean was in his.
Tack on: Well regardless of how you feel about the film it's inspired me to want to learn more about the Mexican Revolution. Which I realize is a ridiculously large daunting task.
As the Mexican Revolution may just be the most impressive revolution in history.
Yes I know, a lot of Americans love their little Revolution too.
(Some of them even think that it's the equivalent of the second coming of Christ.)
But I'm sorry Mexico just has so much going on and the amount of time and effort that was put into it is just so daunting.
It's up there with the Haitian revolution for how impressive it was.
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