300
Director: Zack Snyder
Rated: MA
From 5 April


'300' is based on a small series of comic books by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley that dramatised the historic ancient Battle of Thermopylae, in 480 BC. The battle was a major engagement involving the troops of an alliance of Greek city-states attempting to defend a small pass against the vast armies of the expanding Persian Empire and its emperor Xerxes. The Greek force's core consisted of 300 Spartan men led by their King Leonidas. Spartans were known generally for their superlative military toughness and laconic attitude to danger, and here they managed to repel the Persian's frontal assaults and inflict hugely disproportionate casualties on the invaders. The Greeks were undone in the end, however, by a traitor who revealed to the Persians a path by which they could approach the Spartans' rear.

The film in question keeps most of the basic facts of the history, and then tries to construct a whole lot of personalities, images, and drama to fit around the factual frame and give it a bit of life. Leonidas (Gerard Butler) is a passionate family man but, above all, devoted to his city and its freedom. Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) is a despicable, jewellry-pierced narcissist, guilty of percieving himself as a god and of indulging in every sort of lust. The traitor Ephialtes (Andrew Tiernan) is deformed, diseased, and pitiable. With an abundance of such distinct character types, the film's dramatic interactions are never dull. Giving form, colour, and space to everything is a mass of computer generated imagery, with very comic-bookish emphasis on spraying blood, shadow, and sharp objects.

The only real point of interest with '300' is the way it unquestioningly adopts a 'Spartan' attitude to proceedings. Sparta was a society obsessed, among other things, with physical power, violence, and death, and as such saw the battle as a perfect expression of the sorts of things they valued. The film zealously embraces the same attitude, measuring moral standing by characters' ability to skewer enemies, presenting violence with utmost enthusiasm, and glorifying death beyond anything non-religious seen in cinema. It's all rather vulgar and backward, but as such it is able to provide an experience both of the factual battle and the attitudes and worldviews involved in it.

On the other hand, it may be that the film verges on promoting fascism. And it is certainly not enough to hide the fact that the technical production is artless and barely professional, or that the acting is robotic and lacks any historical feeling whatsoever.

William McGinley