>>REVIEW
300
STARRING Gerard Butler and Lena Headey
DIRECTED BY Zack Snyder
Opens Friday, March 9
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Modern cinema fears violence. Toy guns and wounds trickling corn syrup and food colouring are hidden by shaky camera work on the battlefield or in random gunfights in smelting factories. Some films revel in gore porn, awash in more guts than a human being could possibly squeeze out of his mouth. 300, though, is a meticulously crafted shrine to violence in all its brutal lyricism.
Based on the Eisner-award winning graphic novel by Frank Miller, the film follows the 300 Spartan soldiers under King Leonidas’s command as they wage war against the overwhelming Persian forces at the mountain pass of Thermopylae. The Spartans are hard men who laugh off fatal wounds and spend downtime stabbing enemy survivors on the battlefield. Carved from bronze, they grunt and slash as hyper-masculine myths – especially Gerard Butler. Beyond the animal ferocity and cunning, he brings a sadistic charm to his King Leonidas. Nothing makes the guy happier than lopping off the limbs of his enemies as he roars "Sparta" into their faces with an irresistible glee. The character, like much of the film, exists on a scale that causes the balls of other movies to shrivel.
Director Zack Snyder and Frank Miller weren’t interested in recreating the Battle of Thermopylae of 480 B.C., but set out to convey the story with the flourish of a storyteller at the head of the fire. Metaphors become literal in the film – arrows crowd the sky to blot out the sun and Persian troop movements cause tremors with each step. Much of the film’s disturbingly beautiful imagery, notably the fate of an entire village and how the Spartans use enemy corpses, are lifted directly from the graphic novel, just as Robert Rodriguez did for Miller’s Sin City. Miller’s illustrations have an urgency and starkness that Snyder attempts to lovingly re-create on screen. The process grants graphic scenes of violence a Zen calmness, replacing Miller’s urgency with arresting clarity. Sword thrusts and decapitations slow down to ensure every detail is appreciated. Every frame becomes a testament to the beauty of violence.
Despite its preponderance for blood-drenched beauty, Snyder ensures the film moves briskly. Though it falters during embarrassing attempts at political relevance, with brief allusions to the war in Iraq jarring in a film only interested in the slaughter, 300 remains undeniably gorgeous and worthy of its ambition. Unapologetic and graphic, the film transforms war into beauty. This is cinema to make your testicles heavier or induce hair growth on ovaries. |
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