THE EMPEROR’S NEW CLOTHES

THE EMPEROR’S NEW CLOTHES is an inventive comedy about what the life of Napoleon may have been like had he escaped exile. This was his plan: Napoleon, played brilliantly by Ian Holm (LORD OF THE RINGS and THE SWEET HEREAFTER), is to be replaced on the island prison of St. Helena by look-alike commoner Eugene (also Ian Holm). The emperor will escape by ship to France posing as Eugene the sailor. In the meantime, Eugene will pretend to be Napoleon in exile. At the right moment, Eugene will reveal himself to be an imposter, and Napoleon, in France, will once again rally the people around him and reassume power. As he leaves for France, Napoleon says all he has to trust in now is his own will and the love of the people of France.

As everyone knows, life doesn’t always work out the way we would have planned it – even as emperor. The ship that Napoleon has boarded as Eugene makes a detour to Belgium because the goods on the ship will turn a better profit there. Now, the clever schemer has to find another route to Paris.

Making his way from Belgium to Paris, Napoleon stops once more in Waterloo. Waterloo is where his campaign to conquer all of Europe was halted, and he was captured and sent into exile. He is visibly excited to see the glorious battlefield of his defeat. Instead, he finds a horrifying tourist trap complete with wooden children’s toys of himself climbing a ladder. He even naps on a bed with a sign over it that says, “Napoleon slept here.” Before he doses off he says, “I’ve never slept here!”

As he continues to head for his beloved country, French soldiers stop his carriage at the border. Upon finding Eugene’s papers, the guards imprison him with no explanation. It turns out that they have been eagerly awaiting their emperor and had to make secret plans to get him into Paris.

They tell Napoleon to go to the home of a particular French officer, Lieutenant Trucio. However, when he arrives, he finds the officer lying in state and his grieving widow, Pumpkin, struggling to survive. She is clueless of her husband’s involvement in the plan to reinstate Napoleon. The Trucios own a melon farm, and the widow now has to run the business herself. As the business is failing, she’s had to give up her furniture to satisfy her creditors – including the emperor’s bed. Napoleon encourages her by telling her, “Hardship sharpens the wits.”

Meanwhile, back on St. Helena, the imposter has decided that being the emperor – even in exile – is more fun than swabbing ship decks. He says he has scrubbed the emperor’s ships for 18 years, so Napoleon can wait a little longer. He bides his time drinking his sire’s liquor and adding his own sordid two cents to the exiled emperor’s memoirs.

While waiting for news of both the imposter and his own escape, Napoleon puts his frustrated conquering hands into the revival of Mrs. Trucio’s melon business. One of the most entertaining scenes in the movie unfolds as he goes to the library, researches the city, and delivers a war-room-style briefing to the melon farmers on how to market their goods to a side of the city yet untapped by other merchants. He finishes his rousing speech to the awestricken farmers with, “conquer or perish!” His ragtag army arises with a cheer. He tells Pumpkin, “An army is less numbers than spirit.”

The plan works wondrously. With Pumpkin’s business on the rebound, as an indication of thanks, she buys him a magnificent gold-trimmed Egyptian bed. She remembered him telling her of what a wonderful time he had there with the “old guard.” She tells him, “I want you to be happy here.” She says for the first time in her life she doesn’t feel alone.

As Napoleon and Pumpkin grow closer they have a conversation about what the extended time of Napoleon’s war has done to France. She explains that the neighborhood is filled with widows and orphans. She and her husband barely saw each other for 15 years. Finally, after the emperor’s defeat at Waterloo, he returned and they started their melon business. Napoleon begins to realize that not everyone is eager for him to resurface and conquer again, including the woman with whom he’s falling in love.

Finally, the last twist to frustrate Napoleon’s plans to resurface: the imposter dies due to a sudden heart attack. In desperation, hoping that the news will reach France, his servants have to confess to the British officer in charge of guarding the emperor that this is an imposter. The embarrassed British officer decides that the only way to save his face, and that of England, is to pronounce Napoleon dead.

When Napoleon hears the news, he springs into a frantic series of attempts to announce that he is actually the emperor. Pumpkin is so concerned over his apparent delusion that she calls in a psychiatrist. Napoleon responds with anger and separates himself from her. Is this the end of their relationship? In one desperate attempt to snap him back to reality, she shouts, in tears, “You can’t be Napoleon. Eugene is everything to me. I hate Napoleon! He’s filled France with widows and orphans. He’s taken my husband. I won’t let him take you!!”

An important subplot involves Pumpkin’s friend Dr. Lambert. When Napoleon first comes to the late lieutenant’s home, the doctor is there to comfort and guide the widow, Pumpkin. It is obvious to the viewer that his ulterior motive is that he is trying to win her affections. In her sorrowful state of mind, she is oblivious to his intentions and grows ever closer to her spirited houseguest “Eugene.” When Dr. Lambert discovers the truth, Napoleon risks being exposed for real. The rest of the story tells whether Lambert will expose Napoleon to gain Pumpkin for himself. Also, will Napoleon settle for being Eugene, a simple melon farmer?

If the filmmakers are telling us anything it is that people perceive themselves much differently than others do. Napoleon became disconnected from his country and his subjects as he gave way to delusions of grandeur while trying to make a better world for them. It takes a comedy of errors, the love of a woman who knows him for his heart rather than his position, and the threat of institutionalization to open his eyes to the dark side of his personal triumphs. While he was out saving Europe, his own people suffered and eventually despised him.

The movie’s most blatant error, however, is the romantic idea that people are either good or bad relative to their environment. The reality, according to God’s Word, is that we each are heirs of a deceitful and corrupt heart. Without New Birth, Godly repentance, and sanctification by the Holy Spirit, not to mention restitution, this story is an entertaining, fanciful diversion that if followed out to a realistic conclusion would include a prideful man willfully conquering his family, friends and neighbors . . . and maybe even destroying himself.