300

26 August 2007

Gerard Wood

The film adaptation of Frank Miller’s graphic novel, 300, is a gloriously bloody feast for the crows, and any other carrion birds within sniffing distance! The carnage and body count in this movie are impressive, to say the least.

On a screen saturated with dark, rich comic book colours, intense shades of red dominate: the crimson of the Spartans’s cloaks as they wade through a red river of Persian blood spilled at the pass of Thermopylae, the Hot Gates which the Spartans defend to the last man, but one.

Having said that, 300 is far less gruesome than the film adaptation of another of Miller’s creations, Sin City. The violence in 300 is appropriate to the context. The Battle of Thermopylae was a bloody affair in which the vastly outnumbered Spartans under King Leonidas outfought the invading Persian army for three days, inflicting massive losses on the invaders and achieving Leonidas’s longer term objective – a victory for Greece. Rather than revelling in gratuitous violence, it is the heroism and fighting prowess of the Spartans that is glorified in the film’s spectacular action sequences.

But you get the picture: from the breathtaking scenes of battle to the depiction of the idealistically heroic Spartans and less than human enemy, 300 is the stuff of hyper-reality. And in the end, that is what redeems it from its one major flaw. More on that below.

Directed by Zack Snyder, and with Miller as executive producer, the film is a faithful translation of Miller’s graphic novel to film. What plot there is can be summarised succinctly: the year is 480 BC and the world’s current super power, the Persians, led by the god king Xerxes (played exuberantly by Rodrigo Santoro) are expanding the empire and Greece is in their sights. A Persian messenger arrives in Sparta and demands earth and water from King Leonidas (a compelling and ferocious Gerard Butler) as a token of Sparta’s submission. Leonidas refuses with a decisive and summary execution of the messengers and war ensues.

Up to this point the film’s historic credentials are fine.

In the film, Leonidas is denied the support of the priestly Ephors, who we soon discover have been bribed by the Persians. Without their nod of approval he is forbidden to rally the army. Understanding what is at stake Leonidas nonetheless gathers a small band of the finest Spartan warriors and using the narrow pass of Thermopylae against the superior number of Persians makes an heroic and symbolic last stand. This has the desired effect of unifying the rival Greek City States into a nation, and mobilises them against the invaders. As defining moments go in a nation’s history, this is the big one for Greece.

And that is about where the history in 300 ends, although perhaps not the historical veracity as Miller seems to have captured the spirit of Spartan culture with its violence, brutality and dedication to the arts of war, to honour, duty and service to the city state.

But 300 is not history and is not intended to be understood as history. The movie is Zack Snyder’s tribute to Frank Miller’s graphic novel which, let’s not kid ourselves, is a comic. Apologies to all you graphic novel purists out there, but I'm hard pressed to distinguish between a comic and a graphic novel on the best of days.

And this is a comic book world, one that conforms to the conventions and limitations of graphic art: this is a fundamentally visual medium in which the complexities of character are typically visualised; where inner truths are conveyed externally, physically; where the use of words is, well, spartan, to say the least. Visual cues tell us more about the characters than their words ever do, whether they are individuals (consider Ephialtes, a Spartan traitor, corrupt and twisted on the inside and depicted as a seriously deformed hunchback); groups (the Spartan warriors are physically and by extension morally superior), or an empire (the Persians are essentially sub-human, monstrous).

So, while I greatly enjoy this movie for its visuals, its stirring action and the heroism of the Spartans, if I have a reservation it is with this over-simplification of good and bad, right and wrong, east and west. And there is some danger in this simplistic depiction of inner truth, particularly I think in these times of growing conflict and division between the two worlds of the east and west: keep in mind that the Persians are essentially Iranians.

My guess is that 300 won’t be making it in to the top 100 movies in Iran.

So here’s something to ponder: does this simplistic depiction of the Persian enemy as monstrous help our understanding of each other or entrench stereotypical beliefs?

I don’t believe 300 has a sinister political or cultural agenda and it does not set out to tell history, but the fact that it is based on an historical event and two recognisable cultures, its over-simplification of peoples and cultures does leave me with some slight reservations about what is otherwise a highly enjoyable film.

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