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It’s a visually interesting film. I think Elijah made a good point about the story being a re-telling of the legend from a mythological point of view, it certainly felt like an instructive story that had been exaggerated out of proportion over the years, not just in the introduction of inhuman monsters. You get the same sense from the story concerning young Leonidas at the start, where it’s clearly a coming of age tale overlaid with mythic/fantasy elements like big scary wolf demons. I felt the stop-start battle scenes and the iconic poses largely conveyed very well the sense that this had been adapted from a comic (if that was indeed what they were going for) and how well that fits in with the sense of the frozen image as well, the idea that these were characters transformed from men into inhuman symbols. I thought the use of the phalanx style defence was good as well, although I can understand why they felt that, dramatically, it was the sort of thing that would work well once, and that they sacrificed plausibility for the cool actions scenes. But on the whole it was enjoyable and silly and on that empty-headed level I quite enjoyed it. Ridiculous shouty men with TORSOS stabbing at other men and beasts all slick with blood with silly background music. Lovely. If there was a bit more manly wrestling I’d have been sold. Both the narration and the sub-plot were much weaker, and the political speechifying decidedly more dubious. In some ways the narration spoiled the sense of epic, profound deeds and words by spelling it all out, which was a bit of a shame.
While there’s clearly a concern about how easy it is to read American imperialism into the film, and the desensitisation at the killing of the enemy as not being truly human is highly problematic, taking it apart from its conditions of production, what struck me about the main plot, such as it is, is how apposite it is for a reading directly opposite to the ones suggested above. So a counter-reading, if you like, not intended to dismiss the validity of other readings:
Gold underpants aside, I didn’t get the same sense of pervy, androgynous, bisexual Xerxes some people did. Definite elements of monstrousness though, overdeveloped size, self-mutilation. There’s obviously a lot in the narrative about physical disfiguration, not just in the Persians themselves, but in the corrupt Ephors and traitorous Ephialtes. Just to go back to the exaggeration of traits again, it’s clear that in the film you don’t get hunchbacks, you get grossly deformed, improbably muscled monster hunchbacks, you don’t get wolves and elephants and slaves and emperors, but giant wolves and elephants and overtly dangerous and grotesquely muscled giants and demi-gods. You don’t stand them beside men, but against perfect, clean limbed, virtuous paragons. It’s almost like a folk tale, a warning against the effects of corruption, and the importance of staying true to a rigid moral code.
From my point of view, you could easily read America into this image of a religiously oppressive nation that, effectively, rules the world. It demands submission from others and expects the fruits of the earth. It’s a corrupting force, decadent, sexual, exploitative, luxurious, prepared to coerce weaker nations financially and politically, and to bribe individuals or seduce them into working against their home nation. I think the film has a lot on the dangers of being fooled into fighting for the enemy either by taking on their luxuries or turning informer and/or donning their uniform (as Ephialtes does). There’s also the sense that the oppressor can only do this because of existing deformity or weakness within the other wise virtuous society, and in some sense acts as a test of its purity.
In terms of the conflict we’ve got a small defensive group, not technically an army, holding its own against a much superior invading force. This superior force mixes the nations of the earth, has over-developed warriors who lose their identities under uniforms, and in contrast to the defenders simpler weapons heavily uses powerful projectiles and incendiaries. They will also summon tremendously powerful, dangerous moving weapons (elephants and rhino-beasts) that the defenders are yet compelled to attack cunningly and indirectly to bring them down. There's a general message that organisation and valour and conviction and knowing the terrain can allow a much weaker force to struggle against a stronger one. The losses of life in the small group are important because they are connected to each other as family, and by extension they are connected to the lives they seek to protect at home, in contrast the lives of the oppressors are worthless because they are invaders who lack identity, who fight out of idolatry and obedience rather than believing in a true cause. The overall message of the film is that when physical victory cannot be achieved then there is a cultural victory earned through self-sacrifice which can be won and which will in turn result in an uprising of many nations coming together under a central cultural myth and overthrowing the external oppressor. The death of this small group of men is significant because they died as heroes against impossible odds, bloodying the nose of an overwhelming imperial power, which was only possible through their status as standard-bearers for that culture’s values.
Now, that reading won’t entirely fit the film in the same way its opposing one won’t, but the broad similarities between, say, the British/American incursion into Iraq and the events of the film, and the sense that the film could almost be read as a rallying call for present-day insurgents against Western power, certainly struck me, and coloured my perspective on how expedient it is perhaps for both sides of the current Iran/U.S. controversy to read it in one way. Putting aside yes the good guys are very white and yes the bad guys are very not (and the terrible, tacked on political sub-plot), in other considerations there’s really a lot of ground for reading the film the “other” way. Not saying involved in the making of the film was thinking that at the time. Just… saying. |
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