300

i saw 300 awhile back but luckily i don’t have much to say about it. 300 was directed by zack snyder and is the newest frank miller graphic novel adaptation. the film is based on the true battle of thermopylae and the 300 spartan soldiers who fought in it. this film has a similar aesthetic style to that of sin city, 2005’s frank miller adaptation. having read neither of the graphic novels upon which these films were based, i can’t really speak to the quality of the adaptations, but in terms of purely comparing the films, i enjoyed sin city more. while the visuals of 300 are impressive, i found myself a little bored part way through the film. the beginning of the film that builds towards the battle was interesting, but once at war, the film was somewhat tedious. the style of the battle scenes were all the same (regular speed, fast motion, slow motion, etc) which looked amazing but didn’t impress me as much once i’d already seen the techniques. the dialogue of the film is primarily meant to inspire the spartan soldiers, and us in turn, the audience. for the most part though, the script is cheesy, flat, and decidedly uninspiring; the same could have been true of sin city given that both have a graphic novel as source material but in my opinion, sin city was a much denser text. i think its safe to say that 300 is attempting to wow us with its visuals and violence and that the focus should not be so much on the narrative or the acting. but in retrospect i don’t find myself remembering the aesthetic as particularly exceptional, and therefore i feel like 300’s visuals failed to compensate for its lack of a strong story.

another aspect to the film i found interesting was the way it negotiates between being homophobic and homoerotic. as a film targeted primarily towards heterosexual males, there are surprisingly few females in it; only one in fact comes to mind, queen gorgo. not only are there very few women present, but the incredibly muscular, half-naked spartan soldiers who all live and fight together have clearly formed strong bonds amongst each other that leave open the possibilities for queer interpretations. these homoerotic overtones seem to be balanced by the homophobic treatment of the persian leader, xerxes (rodrigo santoro). xerxes, the spartans’ enemy is highly feminine and could potentially be sexually threatening, and thus the film demonizes him by implicating the villain as queer. the homoerotic nature of the spartan soldiers relations are a threat to masculinity within this testosterone-heavy film and therefore xerxes is villianized to ease these anxieties and reinforce the heterosexuality of the soldiers. granted, all this comes with the comic book territory and fanboy culture but i still hoped for less adherence to this gendered structure.

watch the trailer