Cabiria

The eruption of Mt. Etna leaves a rich girl separated from her family, kidnapped, sold into servitude and nearly offered as a sacrifice to the gods before being rescued by two slaves, just as Hannibal and his troops make their way towards Rome. Giovanni Pastrone's influential early silent epic has been given a pristine restoration, looks as if it came out forty years after it was made, and is noted by some spectacular, head scratching sequences. *** out of ****