300

Modern Sparta

I went to see 300 and it was quite an experience. The plot, and if you’re an ancient historian you will need this explaining, is more or less as follows.

For no apparent reason an emissary arrives from Persia demanding a minor tribute. The king, Leo Nydas, refuses and asks the council to send an army to Thermopylae to fight the Persians. A woman takes her top off. The council refuses to send an army. Another woman takes her top off. Then Leo and 300 volunteers go on a trip to Thermopylae to fight Persians for the remainder of the film in a heterosexual way.

It’s not fair to judge the film by its historical accuracy. The Persians weren’t really Orcs. However some of the inaccuracies are interesting because they reveal how badly we understand Sparta. There’s a point in the film where one of the councilmen of Sparta is angry because the Queen hasn’t taken her top off recently. He tells her he’s a politician rather than a warrior. Ouch! The film itself makes clear that to be a Spartan was to be a warrior. He also says that not all Spartans were born equal. But the Spartans, as opposed to the perioikoi or helots (slaves) called themselves the Homoioi, the Equals.

Does is work as an action movie? After a barrage of arrows, King Leo finds about a dozen shafts lodged in his shield. With a fairly limp swing he cuts off all of them. This doesn’t really bother me. It’s the ancient equivalent of those pistols American action heroes have that never run out of bullets.

The problem with taking the film seriously is that by its own internal logic it doesn’t work. There’s a scene where a wretch begs to fight alongside the Spartans. Leo asks him how high he can raise his shield, and it’s not high enough. Spartans, Leo explains, fight as a phalanx and a man needs to be able to raise his shield to fight in it. There can be no weak points. The wretch is understandly upset to have been rejected on a fleeting visit by the historical accuracy fairy and has a bit of a yell. In the very next scene, Leo leaps out and starts waving his sword and shield around like a five year old. Yet the refusal to allow the volunteer to fight is the plot point the film hinges on.

Perhaps it’s also unfair to judge the film on its plot too. The real aim of the film is to show muscular men waving large phallic objects at other men. Thus the women taking their tops off also proves to be a crucial plot point, because otherwise you might get the wrong idea about Spartan men. Incidentally Plutarch notes that Spartan women when they married cut their hair and wore male clothes, so that Spartan men would sleep with them. But that’s another issue.

The biggest disappointment of the film to me was that it appears to lack guts. Ok, it has them in a physical sense, though decapitation appears to be favourite grisly end. What I mean is that it didn’t have the courage to let the Spartans win. I know that they didn’t in reality, but when you have a Persian arrive on what looks like a dinosaur, reality clearly ceases to be a plausible excuse. That’s the film’s biggest flaw. It’s neither one thing nor the other. If you’re going to give the Persians genetically modified elephants and holy hand grenades, then why shouldn’t the Spartans have machine guns crafted by Archimedes? A grumpy historian might point out that Archimedes wasn’t born till a couple of centuries after Thermopylae, but the Spartans were all Greeks from all periods rolled into one.

Despite the visual splendour the overall impression of the film is that there’s a shortage of imagination. How do you depict the Persians? They’re deformed or black or both. That Iran is miffed is no surprise. I am surprised that black people aren’t making more of a fuss. I like to think the film makers were trying for exotic rather than racist, but I think that largely they missed. In their defence though, it should be noted that everyone on both sides was portrayed as two dimensional caricatures rather than human. Leo Nydas is an excellent example. The best plan Leo comes up with is “Hey lads, lets all go to Thermopylae and get our throats cut!” It’s simply not a good enough reason. The only man would make that work would be Brian Blessed. It’s rare that a film can’t be improved by adding Brian Blessed.

I enjoyed it. I haven’t laughed so much at a film in a long while. I was eager to see if it would be Faramir who killed the Oliphaunts. But if you want to see a film about the brave men who died at Thermopylae then you may be better off with the Care Bears movie.

…and just before I click ‘publish’ I’ve found this on Wikipedia:

The film’s director Zack Snyder states that “The events are 90 percent accurate. It’s just in the visualization that it’s crazy… I’ve shown this movie to world-class historians who have said it’s amazing. They can’t believe it’s as accurate as it is.”

Well, you can see how he might take it that way.

Other reviews:
Voyages of the HMS Swiftsure: Go tell the Spartans, Passerby…
Archaeology Magazine: Spartans Overwhelmed at Thermopylae, Again
Critical Mass: 300
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