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300
Reviewed by Theo Michelfeld
Posted: March 12, 2007

What's the purpose of a movie anyway? Is it merely a feast for the senses? Or is it a story we are meant to contemplate? Please choose now.

I'm joking, of course. It's not necessary to choose one path or the other. A movie can pursue both objectives, and most do, balanced in varying measures, and with varying degrees of success. But a wise filmmaker knows when a movie really should abandon one of those two purposes. While it's true many of the all-time great masterpieces achieve thunderous success on both levels (The Godfather Part II, anyone?) it's also true that some great films apply all their weight to one side, or the other, of the scale.

For instance Zach Snyder's 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead. Great movie, and it would not work if the filmmakers had not allowed the viewer an emotional connection to the characters. But at the same time, it exists in a philosophical and political vacuum. Snyder wisely forbids the viewer any intellectual traction, and thus his film succeeds as a work of thoroughly enjoyable, uncorrupted escapism.

Now Zach Snyder returns with the film 300. This film is nothing if not a feast for the senses. Truly, it's like nothing we've seen before. It is not merely the technical achievement that commands respect. The images onscreen are downright artful. For two very speedy hours the viewer bears witness to outlandish and yet somehow truthful visions of color, light, and physics. It's orgiastically violent, but if you can stomach the violence, do so, and see this movie.

That said, Zach Snyder treads, with this film, where his previous film refused to go. That is: into the realm of philosophy. This aspect of the movie can be ignored, and surely it will be, by many, despite the fact that the characters shout, bellow, grunt, spit, and gently narrate the teachings of their death cult nearly constantly throughout. It's not so much that I find these words to be irresponsible, or inappropriate to the film's theme. It's just that I find them to be wrong. The warrior code is not in dispute here. Surely there is honor in self-sacrifice, and surely there are principles worth fighting and dying for. But to dash the weak against the rocks, and abuse the strong from boyhood until they live only for death in battle in an endless stalemate of carnage that spans the millennia and continues to this day... folks, this philosophy clearly stinks, doesn't it? Sure it's got longevity, but so what? The treadmill in a hamster cage goes on forever. But it leads nowhere.

300 is about the battle of Thermopylae, an actual event in which a small faction of 300 Spartans defied their country's laws and rode into battle against hundreds of thousands of invading Persians. The Spartans were eventually defeated, but not before they had demoralized the invaders and roused the rest of Greece into battle and eventual victory. The film is based on, and visually inspired by, a graphic novel by Frank Miller. It aims to look like a comic book, and yes, this kind of thing has been attempted before. But for once I believe the feat has been achieved.

300 conquers all of the problems that plagued its cinematic forebears. For one thing, the movie is about, first and foremost, motion. Though comic books have been doing it for years, I don't know if any movie has ever glorified the human body in motion quite to the extent this film has. And not just bodies; also in nearly ceaseless motion throughout this film: drifting snowflakes and embers, circling seagulls and vultures, broken shards of spears and arrows, and spinning severed heads. And it's all in super slow motion, or motion that quickly stops and starts, as the warriors thrust and parry, providing, as comic books do, lingering images of human sinew in states of profound tension, while at the same time urging us forward to the next frame. Brilliant.

The film also wisely employs a greatly reduced color palette. But unlike Dick Tracy before it, this film chooses colors that feel more like textures, or elements: sunlight, copper, fire, shadow, steel, stone, and blood. And that's about it. Beautiful.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the film's images, somehow, are truly flattened. Stanley Kubrick accomplished this once in some of Barry Lyndon's low-lit scenes, which were filmed to look like a painting. But 300 makes a whole movie of the endeavor. And as with the film's approach to motion, it seems there is an irony that must be embraced in order to achieve what is essentially a counterintuitive result. Consider this: A comic book artist uses shadow to create the illusion of three dimensions. Conversely, the makers of 300 have used shadow to create the illusion of two dimensions; somehow the shadows sit on the same plane as the objects that cast them. The viewer might see this and exclaim: "It looks 3D!" But let me suggest that it actually looks 2D. It looks like a 2D attempt at a 3D illusion. Very cool.

And so, equipped with these thoughtful techniques, and with juicy over-the-top dialogue and magnetic acting by all involved, the filmmakers bring us the battle of Thermopylae. They bring us whirling soldiers, slashing swords, rampaging elephants and chain-bedecked rhinos, giant mutants, men on horseback, far out sorcerers, and, in occasional quiet interludes, writhing nude women... all set to brass heavy orchestral music, or what can best be described as Middle Eastern heavy metal. Bravo. Mean it. I am entertained.

So why am I criticizing this film's message? Because it made the mistake of offering one. And I wouldn't buy the arguement that the film merely portrays, but does not endorse, the Spartan way of life. 300 offers no objectivity about the words and deeds of its characters. If the comic book stylings are meant to negate any of the film's sincerity, then the masterful art direction has backfired; there is bloodlust in every frame.

By comparison, Snyder's previous film simply trapped its characters in a zombie infested mall and asked them to escape. Cool. I am behind those characters. In a similar situation (here I acknowledge the easy jest about my Saturday afternoons) I would hope to show the same courage and ingenuity. But these 300 Spartans... I would not wish their attributes upon myself. Dying may be inevitable, and for some, killing may be too. But it is not our human purpose. This film pays much lip service to a "bright future" for which the soldiers fight. Well the battle of Thermopylae was 2,500 years ago, and here we are, countless generations later, still fighting wars for that same elusive bright future. When does the fighting stop? Does anyone really think there will be one, final, evil head to sever? Is it not plainly obvious that a dedication to violence only leads to an endless, gory, heartbreaking stalemate? Can't we do any better?

Folks, I am a realist. If there's a rabid dog in the streets, someone has to put it down. But meanwhile, perhaps our bright future will finally get here when we stop obsessing about noble reasons to die, and start focusing on noble reasons to live.

Copyright 2007 Theo Michelfeld