Movie Review: 300
- Theatrical release date
- March 9, 2007
- DVD release date
- July 31, 2007
- Grade
- A
A rousing film worthy of Spartan legend.
For what it’s worth, my husband and I sometimes disagree on movie reviews (it’s true!), but especially, it seems, on movies that are adaptations of Frank Miller’s work. My husband liked Sin City, while I thought it was not only filled with heavy-handed misogyny, but also committed the deadly sin of being stultifyingly dull. Now we’re on opposite sides again, with me thrilled by 300 and my husband the one saying the movie was tedious. So, even though this appears to be a “guy’s movie” that should leave women cold, in our household, it was the other way around. Just saying.
The main thing that makes the movie work for me is the structure. The movie is narrated by a storyteller, Dilios (David Wenham), who is giving this account at a later date. Consequently, the fantastical geography he speaks of and the twisted bodies of the enemy he paints with his words are not meant to be the factual truth, but embellishments to capture the ears of his audience. You don’t have to wonder where the Persian king finds thousands of mutants for his army — they’re only mutants in the eyes of the Spartans. The colors, camera angles, and cinematography give you the story as Dilios tells it, and that makes all the difference. Without this narrative device, the movie would have fallen flat on its bearded face.
Normally, I’m pretty hard on historical epics. I liked Gladiator but, for Pete’s sake, those were not Roman cavalry saddles on those horses! However, 300 is clearly the narrator’s version of events, designed to inspire the folks back home to remember their fallen. Demonic adversaries, stylized violence, and cool but unbelievable last lines (“It’s an honor to die by your side,” answered by, “It’s been an honor to have lived at yours.”) are part of the storyteller’s art. I can live with that. This movie is the Battle of Thermopylae seen through legend.
Though some reviewers have claimed the movie is homophobic, I didn’t get that out of it. Leonidas (Gerard Butler) does look down upon the Athenians as “boy-lovers,” but it doesn’t seem to be gay sex so much as pederasty that the Spartans despise. If there’s any doubt, I think the following exchange between two Spartans at the end of a very bloody day puts it to rest.
“Are you still around?”
“Someone has to watch your backside.”
“Not now. I’m busy.”
Homophobic? Um, I’m thinking not.
I’ve also seen complaints about the gore level, but I can’t figure that, either. Any slasher movie will bathe the screen in fifty times the blood. Heck, this movie has nothing on either Silent Hill or The Abandoned that I reviewed last month. In 300, blood sprays prettily, and in slow motion, out of smaller cuts, but decapitations are bloodless. Very unrealistic by any measure, and even though we’ve got plenty of slo-mo to make sure the audience sees blood, once it’s gone, it’s gone. This is, remember, the battle seen through the lens of bardic poetry, and thus we have tame sprays of blood that conveniently disappear instead of the lakes of blood of a real-life battle.
It is interesting to note that, while our modern society prefers to send childless men to war, the Spartans had a different attitude. The real Spartans at Thermopylae with Leonidas were an all-sire unit; that is, they all had sons, so their bloodlines and property were secure. This is briefly mentioned in the movie, but if you’re not clear on what they’re talking about, you might miss it. The importance of an all-sire unit to the Spartans can not be overestimated. Since the Spartan elite (spartiates) could only come from descendants of the city’s original families, the death of a childless man meant the end of a family line, and there was no way to replace it. And yet, of course, at various times, childless men did die, and so over the years, the spartiates dwindled in number. By the time of the Roman empire, the few hundred remaining spartiates had become a quaint tourist attraction. The Spartans did their best to stave off this fate for as long as possible, which is why the historical Leonidas took only fathers of sons with him on a suicide mission.
If there’s a disconnect between what the characters say and what they do, it’s the glib use of the word “freedom.” In Sparta, submission of the self to the state was paramount. The movie makes a stab at getting the audience on board with this, but doesn’t entirely succeed. Such complete subservience reminds us more of terrorist bombers and Heaven’s Gate cultists than brave soldiers dying for their country. It helps that the Spartans are making an Alamo-like stand, but watching slave owners who have also made themselves slaves of a sort to their harsh life of severe discipline, doesn’t square well with all the talk of “freedom.”
The filmmakers were helped by historians like Plutarch and Herodotus for their dialogue. Herodotus reports that a Spartan really did respond to “our arrows will blot out the sun” with “then we will fight in the shade.” And Plutarch was the one who claimed that Spartan mothers sent their sons off to war with the admonition “come back with your shield on on it.” Still, some lines fall flat, as when Leonidas exhorts his troops to “eat a good breakfast because tonight we dine in hell.” Honestly, if you’re dining in hell tonight, what difference does your breakfast make?
The movie is often served best by no dialogue at all, which is appropriate. Spartans were famous for having little to say, and thus the name of their province, Laconia, has come down to us as the word laconic, meaning terse in speech. Though Leonidas can certainly yell loudly enough to rally his troops, it’s the scenes where he stares out at his doom in silence that are the most powerful. Interestingly, the odd score, which includes choral works, classical-sounding sections, and other bits that could have been lifted right out of 1980s heavy metal, works as well. The different styles of music underline the timelessness of legend, rather than place the story in a particular historical period.
If you want to watch a History Channel special on Thermopylae, you probaby can, because they’ve dragged out their ancient Greece specials to coincide with this movie’s release. But if you want to watch legend unfold before you in all its stylistic and poetic glory, you won’t find a better way to do it than to spend two hours at 300.
Copyright . Published 1 April 2007 in What’s New.
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