The Empire
Kino Lorber
The Stats
Video: NTSC (720 × 480)
Audio: 5.1 Surround (w/ 2.0 Stereo available in Setup menu)
Subtitles: English SDH
Buy it HERE from Kino Lorber
by "Doc" Hunter Bush, Staff Writer and Podcast Director
The Movie: Fair
I co-host a movie discussion podcast and above all, we admire big swings, which The Empire definitely is, but it's also just a big old mess. Full disclosure, having perused the trailers included on this disc, I began to suspect that maybe The Empire is part of a larger series, or in any case that a viewer would benefit from having some familiarity with the previous works of writer / director Bruno Dumont, but I can't be totally sure.
In a sleepy, seaside French village, unbeknownst to most of the inhabitants, a war for the fate of humanity is taking place. Some of the locals have been possessed by alien beings who lack physical forms, the 0s--naturally jet black liquid blorbs floating in the air who represent the darker side of humanity--and the 1s--spears of white and blue light who embody humanity's nobler aspects--and a child of prophecy has been born, which both sides wish to control.
There's a lot of weird little detail that I kind of actually enjoyed. For instance, somehow, both the earthbound aliens can visit their respective ships in space via hidden portals--the 0s through a dense wood and the 1s via the ocean, like in Supergirl (1984). There are also a lot of interesting design elements. The respective heads of each side--the 1s have a Queen (Camille Cottin) and the 0s have Belzébuth (Fabrice Luchini), called Majesty in the film--wear costumes right out of Jodorowsky's Dune, and their spacecraft resemble huge cathedrals or sprawling estates in space, complete with trees! Does it make sense? No! But it doesn't have to. Arthur C. Clarke famously said "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.", and I'm fine with that ...when it's serving some greater end.
The literal plot of The Empire is a by-the-numbers sci-fi story drowning in clichés, but for a while I could excuse it because the film seemed more concerned with (admittedly very basic) philosophical concepts. It seemed to be using the clichés as shorthand (which is what they are) to get everyone to a place where it could begin its more high-minded legwork. But that moment never comes. Tropes pile up, superficial relationships unfold, and by the time the credits roll, you realize that despite a climactic space battle, nothing has truly happened. It's a big nothing, and comparatively expensive-looking, but it's still narratively empty.
Listen. Movies are hard to make, and I don't lambaste them willy-nilly. While I'm sure Dumont had noble intentions when setting out to make The Empire, the result feels like a waste to me. Of time, of talent, of the passion and effort it takes to make even the most misguided film.
The Packaging: Average
The poster / cover image here is a digital collage of pretty much all the characters and some key features of the film. It certainly makes the film look interesting, with the science fiction decadence of some of the designs resembling the work of illustrator Jean Giraud (a.k.a. Moebius) who did designs for the aforementioned, unproduced version of Dune that was to be directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky.
The Video: Average
This being a DVD, the visual quality is never going to be as good as a Blu-ray or any higher quality format. I know that. But I still think this kind of looks bad for a DVD. There was a decent amount of visual noise and artifacting in shots with more substantive depth-of-field, or shots with a lot of detail. One sequence for example features Jane (Anamaria Vartolomei) walking through a field, with Jony (Brandon Vlieghe) following her on his horse, depicted with alternating shots of her feet and the horse's hooves. With a higher quality format, this shot might have come across as striking or even amusing, but the lower quality visuals made it just kind of distracting.
That said, the more effects-heavy shots are surprisingly good. The ships are very detailed and that detail translates very well. I was caught off guard because the earlier shots of just woods and fields were kind of pixel-noise heavy and I wasn't expecting the digitally created aspects to look as clean as they do.
The Audio: Good
I had no issues with the audio from a technical quality standpoint. My three-channel soundbar handled the mix very well, and though the film isn't exactly sonically dense, the balance was handled very well. There was, however, a fucking crazy bird sound that shows up throughout. I first noticed it after a car accident scene, in the relatively empty field where the car ends up. It was such a bizarre bird call that when we cut away to another location, I half convinced myself that it wasn't a bird at all but some kind of robotic noise coming from a character who, therefore, must be a robot (Arrested Development narrator voice: He wasn't).
The sound reoccurs in subsequent scenes in that field, but also occasionally throughout the rest of the film in other locations around this fishing village. It's very unpleasant and hard to ignore. I've never been to France, let alone to this particular coastal town: is this how France sounds?
The Special Features: Poor
In general, I don't think there's any less exciting "special feature" than a bunch of trailers. It just feels like advertising. Though sometimes, when a disc also has some kind of commentary track--which, to be clear, this does NOT, despite this being a project that could honestly benefit from hearing the creator explain his goals--these titles can be given a greater significance.
Here, the trailers are obviously for other offerings from writer/director Bruno Dumont, at least three of which are set in the same town as The Empire, two of which feature gendarmes (police) played by Bernard Pruvost and Philippe Jore, and one of them seeming to potentially be connected to The Empire through the inference of black goo aliens. It's unclear if these two members of the gendarmerie are through-lines, or just stock characters Dumont likes. Watch the trailers, and see for yourself, I guess?
- Trailers
- Camille Claudel 1915 (2013)
- Coincoin and the Extra Humans (TV mini-series) (2018)
- The Empire (2024)
- France (2021)
- Li'l Quinquin (2014)
- Slack Bay (2016)
In Summary: Stream it instead
Putting aside the technical aspects--because there IS a Blu-ray available out there--and speaking just as a film: The Empire is kind of interesting at best and that's it. There are some great visuals, and a few fun gags, but none of it is enough to give this any kind of strong recommendation. The tone is distracting, and the bizarre and only vaguely explained world and rules, while interesting, could use a bit more elaboration. The fact that it all builds to a conflict we don't really understand the rules or stakes of, which ends in a very large anti-climax is just the last nail in the coffin for me.
If a science fiction story that's heavier on mundanity than it is on philosophy or story is your thing, grab The Empire at your earliest convenience. Otherwise, wait to check it out first.
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