300: It's like Zorba but with harder abs.
A: T.A.M.S.Y. saw
300 Sunday night, and to be perfectly honestopolous, it was not much better than
just fine. The battle scenes might be worth the price of admission on their own (true to Spartan tradition, Snyder takes great pleasure in the big fat Greek bloodletting), but overall, the flick takes itself way, way, way, way too seriously.
It's a spartan story in
every sense of the word. And despite the crushing heaviness and the many sternly delivered speeches, I'm still not clear of what the film's POV was meant to be, aside from being (a) accidentally pro-troop surge
1 and (b) unabashedly pro-Sparta.
Subtract the eye-popping visuals, and you're left with a lot of draggy yammering — mostly alpha males sounding off furiously, signifying nothing.
GRANTED: We Greeks do take ourselves too seriously sometimes, and we're a big fan of the
dramatic, unannounced gestures, particularly if we're on our seventh ouzo. But behind all the drama and the epic poetry and the nationalism and the carousing and the fatal pride, the Greeks love a good joke. Or at least a few smashed plates.
The filmic
Sin City, behind the direction of
Robert Rodriguez, was carried by its gallows humor: Death was its
joie de vivre, and immorality its POV. Snyder does well in translating the Miller-esque visual brilliance of
Sin City to ancient times, but he fails to find a suitably epic substitute for
Robert Rodriguez's sociopathic glee.
Delphi hot: One sexy piece of oracle.
The flashes of levity in
300 are few + far between (even counting the running gag about how awesome it is to give your life for Sparta, which is about as hilarious as
Jim Lehrer). But the flashes of real gravity are even fewer and far betweener.
HOMER SAYS WHAT? The problem at the heart of
300 is that it confuses epic-ness with self-assurance. It celebrates
King Leonidas' pride as fatal, but refuses even to consider that it might be a flaw. Anyone who dares question the logic of waging war is either a traitorous pussy or a corpse waiting to happen (usually both).
As the ancient Greeks will tell you, loving war doesn't mean never having to say you're sorry. Snyder and Miller seem to have ignored that what makes a violent epic
epic is the reflective eye at the center of the storm, the traitorous pussy voice inside every hero that pauses to ask
What does it all mean? Here and there, even Achilles felt like a heel.
IT'S ALL GAELIC TO ME: I did enjoy
300's characterization of the Greeks as civilization's breadbasket of awesomeness — but why were the Greeks themselves all played by dirty fooking micks?
Seriously, the Greeks haven't been so badly screwed over by the Irish since
Frank Costello framed poor Jimmy Pappas.
DISCUSS AMONGST YOURSELVES: I'm pretty sure that the crowd pictured in the film's final shot would have required more people than were actually alive on Earth in 500 B.C.
ELSEWHERE: Film blog
Solace in Cinema compares shots from
300 the film to Miller's original illustrations from
300 the graphic novel. Very cool.
Juice is like wine: Kid Leonidas, hungry like the wolf.
EARLIER: Why do filmgoers so love the Greeks?
1 It's funny, by which I mean strange, that the film's to troop surge or not to troop surge suplot so closely mirrors current Congressional debate. I haven't read one of Frank Miller's hotheaded soapboxes in nearly a decade, but based on everything I know of the man from my fanboy days, I'm certain he must despise George W. Bush with every fiber of his being. Miller's favorite topic is freedom of speech, and protecting our freedom's is not exactly W.'s strong point.
So it's even funnier, by which I mean stranger, that 300 aims to glorify democracy and freedom through violently stifling debate. Do Snyder and Miller realize they're trying to make an epic hero out of Karl Rove?
