fatvegan

Tom and I, just for a change, when to see a film together last night. We had the choice between 300 and Sunshine but ended up choosing 300 because we thought our other friends would be less likely to want to see it.

I thought it was a pretty fun film. I like Frank Miller a lot. Sin City was one of the coolest films ever, even though I felt quite ill for hours after it. 300 was more like a piece of art than a film. Every shot looked like it had been dragged through a bunch of digital filters. The colours were tweaked all over the place and the textures twisted and pummelled. But I think it was all in good ways. Aesthetically, it was all rather beautiful. The violence was only visceral in the comic book sense. Most of it was beautifully choreographed. So although it was violent, I was never really made aware of it. Or would have had to think about it to label it violence. Violent is not the most relevant label you can apply to the film. Perhaps that is the worst sort of stylisation, but I didn't mind it. Oddly, I didn't even feel like it glorified violence. It glorified strength, athleticism, wit and courage but I felt like violence itself was only a means to an end. Everyone involved would have been quite happy to go home given the opportunity. The soldiers didn't seem angry at each other. Whenever the other side was considered, it was mutual pity that seemed to dominate.

It wasn't an especially thoughtful film, although I suppose that would have been a lot to ask. The director and actors had unflinching courage in the delivery of agonising clichés. They certainly packed them in from start to finish. None of the dialogue was good. But that didn't matter. It felt like the script was trying to create a complementary aesthetic as well, and it did that well. In action and word there are a few "simple truths", and the film hammered those home. They have no relevance to today (if they ever contained any truth at all), and it never felt like we were been shown this society to better emulate it in any way. It was just a story about an interesting civilisation. The film absorbed their moral perspective without actually advocating it.

I didn't think that Persians were unfairly represented either. No one came out of it looking good, and I think that to believe the Spartans were meant to look "good" is missing the point of the film. The Spartans were far more brutal and unreasonable than the Persians. The Persians weren't even evil. They were all slaves forced to fight against their will. Even Xerxes, the Persian leader was made to look entirely reasonable. And he was an immortalish divinity.

However, I think most people will find it unpleasant. But if you're the sort of person who likes watching artfully choreographed decapitations or even the sort that doesn't mind watching artfully choreographed decapitations then you should try and see it.

Update: I found a great review of it from LRB, who have something interesting to say about pretty much everything.

The novelist and the moviemakers are not fascists; only in love with a fascist fantasy, and perhaps even in love only with its picture possibilities.