| Imperium: Nero | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Paul Marcus |
| Starring | Hans Matheson Laura Morante John Simm Matthias Habich |
| Running time | 197 min |
| Country | United Kingdom Italy Spain |
| Language | English |
Imperium: Nero, the movie, is an Italian-British-Spanish Christian apologetic TV movie, part of the Imperium series; it was made film available on DVD as of November 2005 in the U.S.A. and Canada. Produced by EOS Entertainment and Lux Vide for RAI and Telecinco.
Contents |
As a young boy, future emperor Nero witnesses the mad Emperor Caligula kill his father and exile his mother. While in exile in the pontine islands, Agrippina, his mother, sees a vision telling her that her son can become emperor, but she will have to die first. She accepts the proposal. Back in Rome, Nero, now being raised by emperor Claudius after Caligula's death, Agrippina returns. She poisons Claudius' food and Nero becomes emperor. At first, Nero cuts taxes and introduces successful programs and invades Brittania. Soon he meets a beautiful slave named Claudia Acte, and marries her, throwing off his engagement with Claudius' daughter, Claudia Octavia, telling her she can marry someone she will be happy with. Heartbroken, she arrives at an island and kills herself. Nero enjoys being married to Claudia Octavia, but soon he gradually goes mad with power and sets fire to Rome. He divorces Acte, and forces the citizens to watch hour long recitals, and at one of these, accidentally kills his new pregnant wife, Poppaea Sabina. He kills several members of the senate and orders his mother to be stabbed, where she says: "Strike the womb, for that is what bore him." Nero's madness soon causes a riot, causing himself to flee the city in disguise, and slit his wrists under the saddened embrace of Claudia Acte, his once passionate lover.
The movie in many ways tries to show Nero as a good soul gone mad, beginning as a brilliant young prince enduring injustice, then hailed enthusiastically at the beginning of his reign, implementing much-needed reforms and enjoying immense popularity. Half the film concentrates on Nero's teenage years and his love life with Acte.
His relationship with Claudia Acte, his childhood sweetheart, is altered, and its influence on his divorce of Claudia Octavia exaggerated. In fact after Nero's divorce to Octavia he married his pregnant mistress Poppaea Sabina who had married twice before marrying Nero (Rufrius Crispinus and the future Emperor Otho). She did not die the way she actually did, as in reality, she was kicked to death by Nero in a vicious rage. The film also omits Nero's first three attempts to kill his mother Agrippina the Younger, first by poisoning. Nero's second attempt at his mother's murder was having her mattress fixed so that when she lay down to sleep, a decoration on the ceiling above her bed would fall onto the bed. Agrippina, however, always had one of her slave girls lay in her bed for a while to warm it up, so her slave girl was killed by the falling decoration rather than Agrippina. A third attempt was to have her take a voyage on a sabotaged ship, but she managed to swim to shore. The fourth attempt was to have a soldier kill her on the spot, which is shown in the movie as Agrippina comes towards the soldier and tells him, "Strike the womb that bore him". In the film Nero is shown to have a fixation on playing the harp, which is only partly true. In a late part of the movie Nero is shown playing his harp in the center of a Roman Theatre as Emperor around 62 A.D. (which is fiction because Nero never played his harp at any time in front of a large audience. He usually played his harp in isolation or within a small group of friends).
At the end, Nero escapes the city by himself and slits his wrists where he is embraced by Acte. In reality, Nero was carried out of Rome by guards before plunging a dagger into his throat.
The film's budget was around 800,000€ and filmed on location in Sicily and Tunisia in late 2004 and early 2005.