Bare with me while I do something I don’t do much of…critique a movie.
Last Friday, Mike and I dropped Liam off at his grandparents and went to watch The 300. This is something we don’t do much of either. The 300 is the film adaption of Frank Miller’s graphic novel and is based loosely on the ancient Greek Spartan and Persian battle known as Battle of Thermopylae. Since opening Friday night, it has already been recieving a lot of criticism for its start to finish graphic battle scenes and its rather unseemly depiction of ancient Persians. The Iranians are especially pissed off about the latter (like we need another reason to piss off the Iranians right now) and Mitch sent me a rather snarky article written in the New York Times where the first sentence reads:
“300” is about as violent as “Apocalypto” and twice as stupid.
The rest of the critique is not much better (however, extremely hilarious to read). Personally, I feel The 300 is probably one of the most obnoxious examples of war glorification. The plot relies heavily on one historical element, the idea that the Spartans were few but were so courageous and so well trained that they could kick anybody’s ass. Big, small, mortal, imortal, spears, swords, bows, tusks, snouts, mutants, whatever, just align yourself in phalanx formation with spears pointing north and bring it the hell on.
I suppose the whole freedom fighter, hero, historical movie thing is getting a little old. I was actually an early fan of the genre. Don’t ask me how many times I’ve watched Braveheart because I’ve lost count (please don’t ask, I’ll feel like a dork). But epic movies like this tend to effect people differently during war times. It’s difficult not to find hidden messages and allegory around every corner. In fact, what movie production in the last six years has not had some patriotic bumper sticker or anti-war comment plugged into its script. It’s tiresome trying to digest a movie experience while also trying to filter out all the bullshit. It’s not that I don’t think contemporary movies should be saying something about the times, I do, very much so. I just find a lot of the mainstream stuff to be extremely repetative.
But all that put aside, the real strength of The 300 is in its visual appeal. And no, I’m not just talking about Gerard Butler’s pecks and his hunky chipendale-like side kicks. The cinematography was very cativating and very reminiscent of graphic novel art which I’ve always liked for its visual effect. And war glorification or not, the movie is very inspiring which I think, according to the ending, may have been the point in the first place, to tell the story of how the courage of the Spartans at the Battle of Thermopylae eventually (according to history) inspired their people to defend themselves against the Persians later. I don’t care how anti-war you are, you still walk out of the theater wanting a piece of the action.
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