But you'll never take our freeeedom!

[andrewducker]

Or "Never Give Up, Never Surrender", as the crew of the NSEA Protector might say.

300 is an amazingly made movie. If nothing else it's an exercise in style that stretches the boundaries of the form. It's also stunningly violent, unashamedly grotesque and determinedly mythic in its style.

What it doesn't do is give you someone to care about. The Spartans are violent bastards, the Persians are twisted bastards and frankly you end up cheering for the Spartans purely because they're the home team, not because you'd actually like to have them round for tea.

If you can get past having to actually _like_ characters, you can admire their determination and idealism instead. And it's well worth seeing - much like Sin City was, because you've never seen anything quite like it before, and people will be ripping it off for the next five years.

Comments

[kurosau.livejournal.com]

Although I think Sin City definitely did much better in terms of giving you characters to empathize with, I was able to find something to like about Leonidas and his taleteller. Granted, that lack of empathy is the weakest part of the film, in my opinion.

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

Jesus, if ***Sin CIty*** gave us more characters to emopathise with then I think I can definitely skip this one!! is there any way in which this is not like watching a really well done computer game? that's what the trailers look like..

[andrewducker]

It's a war movie. The main characters are soldiers, born, bred and strictly trained. Should you wish to see a very stylised, gorgeously filmed ancient war movie then I recommend it.

The trailer should make it obvious that introspection and complex discussion are not the point of the movie...

(Not that there isn't character stuff, but it's not hugely deep, and largely revolves around people idolising honour, glory, freedom and comradeship)

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

I'll try and persuade Anne and Mike. Anne is a Greek scholar after all.

[kurosau.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing we didn't see the same Sin City, as I found many of the characters to be easy to empathize with, particularly Marv.

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

Is Marv Bruce Willis? if so then yes, he's likeable, admirable, courageous. But he's not a real character - not even as much as Peter Parker or come to that, Daredevil :) - he's an archetype, tough bitten good guy-hero-by-the-numbers. No one in Sin City was anything like a real person or even what passes for the celluloid version of that (a good thing in some cases ;) and you can't empathise with an archetype.

[kurosau.livejournal.com]

Hahaha, since when?

[laserboy.livejournal.com]

Sin City was much better and had cool stories. This, like I said last night, was a docu-drama. Gorgeous looking, but still a Sunday evening BBC1 feature rather than a film.

[khbrown.livejournal.com]

Stretching the boundaries of the form and a lack of characters to care about - go watch Man with a Movie Camera, though since the characters are ordinary people you might; or Menschen am Sontag :-)

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

Why not Miyazake? Beauty, new forms, careable about folks - just lacks the ultra violence :)

[khbrown.livejournal.com]

I do like Grave of the Fireflies - one of the most emotionally affecting films I've seen, which is Ghibli if not necessarily - I can't remember - him. But my general preference is for films with human performers.

Empathy

[vereybowring.livejournal.com]

Just got in from watching 300.

Maybe it's just me but I did empathise with Leonidas about his love of his way of life and I empathised with his wife who knew she would never see him again and just got on with being spartan.

It was the quietest screening I've ever been to.
The audience being captivated by the expert use of lighting and motion speed effects their eyes were being massaged with.

As Andy says, beautifully shot.
There must have been a fortune spent on boot-camping actors to fight in the traditional Spartan phalanx (and much gym working out).
The filtering must have cost a fortune too to get the overall colour balance they had on the scenes.
A team of fx guys must have spent a very long time on the filtering and no doubt adding the gallons of gore to supplement the real gore thrown all over everything.

If you ain't seen it yet go - even if you don't like war films, this one seems to capture what a soldier should be.

I take no responsibility however for anyone of a squeamish nature getting shocked by violence - it's war and it's hell and the spartans loved it.