Invisible Gesticulations - 300 Ways to Say I Love You

From: stsisyphus Date: March 14th, 2007 02:27 pm (UTC) (Link)

cucumberseed, who occasionally posts over at greygirlbeast has posted a pretty balanced review of the film over at his LJ. That is to say, he rogered it pretty good - but he bought it dinner, drinks, and managed to use some lube while doing it.

the giggling from the audience during 300's rape scene

That's revolting. I was also seriously unnerved by the child brutality in the opening moments of the film, wondering if we were for some reason supposed to excuse it by virtue of the assertion that this process made the world's best soldiers and "real men".

There's books worth of the things that could be said about gender politics and roles, particularly in Frank Miller's works. I wish I could talk about the film without having to talk about the comic book - but I think it's going to be impossible.

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From: setsuled Date: March 15th, 2007 01:22 am (UTC) (Link)

watermelontail, who occasionally posts over at greygirlbeast has posted a pretty balanced review of the film over at his LJ.

Interesting review. Nice to see I wasn't the only one who noticed the similarities to Braveheart.

I was also seriously unnerved by the child brutality in the opening moments of the film, wondering if we were for some reason supposed to excuse it by virtue of the assertion that this process made the world's best soldiers and "real men".

Not if you're to take Snyder at his word that we're not meant to identify with the Spartans--though mainly it seems like we are. It didn't really bother me, though, maybe because I hate kids, or maybe because everything about the movie felt too artificial to me.

I wish I could talk about the film without having to talk about the comic book - but I think it's going to be impossible.

I don't see why you should avoid it.

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From: stsisyphus Date: March 15th, 2007 01:53 pm (UTC) (Link)

Not if you're to take Snyder at his word...

I read the article and was a bit relieved that he at least alleged that he wasn't intending the audience to swallow the (pseudo-)Spartan ideals as our own. However, this isn't a sarcastic retelling of the comic book - the ernestness and literal translation of the comic to the film undermine the director's personal opinions about the work itself. Then again, maybe his assertion that the Spartans walk a road of death falls on deaf ears when one takes into account the bloodlust that too many Americans feel when considering war.

I don't see why you should avoid it.

I spent a few hours taking a stab at it, but the issue is like a mire. I keep being drawn into diverging issues and my own personal reservations about Frank Miller. Right now it's an invective uncomfortably wedged into a critique. I'll keep working at it, but so far my best thoughts only seem to be coming in "comments"-sized, teflon-coherent portions.

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From: robyn_ma Date: March 14th, 2007 03:17 pm (UTC) (Link)

What I found amusing was the dichotomy between 'Spartan women have more freedom than any other women' and 'Spartan women are still pretty much cum receptacles/incubators for Spartan male babies, they just aren't beaten for speaking. Plus they pick a Spartan girl every so often and give her to the grody leper guys on the mountain.'

I wouldn't say the movie itself is anti-anything; it's too fundamentally stupid, and blind to everything but kick-ass visual opportunities, to have any kind of agenda. A much more complex film could've been made about the inhuman harshness of Spartan life and culture and how, ironically, all that came in handy when preparing to defend against Persia, but this isn't that movie. It just celebrates and duplicates Frank Miller's image-wanking over machismo.

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From: setsuled Date: March 15th, 2007 01:23 am (UTC) (Link)

What I found amusing was the dichotomy between 'Spartan women have more freedom than any other women' and 'Spartan women are still pretty much cum receptacles/incubators for Spartan male babies, they just aren't beaten for speaking. Plus they pick a Spartan girl every so often and give her to the grody leper guys on the mountain.'

Yeah. It would've been nice if it'd reflected reality a little more. According to the wikipedia entry on Sparta; "Spartan women enjoyed a status, power and respect that was unknown in the rest of the classical world. They controlled their own properties, as well as the properties of male relatives who were away with the army. It is estimated that women were the sole owners of at least 40% of all land and property in Sparta. The laws regarding a divorce were the same for both men and women. Spartan women received as much education as men, as well as a substantial amount of physical education and gymnastic training. They rarely got married before the age of 20, and unlike Athenian women who wore heavy, concealing clothes and were rarely seen outside the house, Spartan women wore short dresses and went where they pleased.

"Women, being more independent than in other Greek societies, were able to negotiate with their husbands to bring their lovers into their homes. According to Plutarch in his Life of Lycurgus, men both allowed and encouraged their wives to bear the children of other men, due to the general communal ethos which made it more important to bear many progeny for the good of the city, than to be jealously concerned with one's own family unit. However, some historians argue that this 'wife sharing' was only reserved for elder males who had not yet produced an heir. For this reason, Plutarch claims that the concept of 'adultery' was alien to the Spartans, and relates that one ancient Spartan had said that it was as possible to find a bull with a neck long enough to stand on a mountain top and drink from a river below, as to find an adulterer in Sparta. A modern view holds that bisexual relations were commonplace among Spartan women, and it was considered acceptable for married women to have affairs with unmarried girls in their prime."

In terms of putting down women, I was actually more bothered by the Spartan soldiers jokingly putting-down each other by calling each other "women" than I was by the oracle. I felt the former was more packaged for the audience to find acceptable.

I wouldn't say the movie itself is anti-anything; it's too fundamentally stupid, and blind to everything but kick-ass visual opportunities, to have any kind of agenda.

Yes, I'd say it's definitely intended to be dumb fun, but at the same time, it's really hard to believe that no-one involved was aware of how they were weighting things.

A much more complex film could've been made about the inhuman harshness of Spartan life and culture and how, ironically, all that came in handy when preparing to defend against Persia, but this isn't that movie.

True, though I can't say I categorically disapprove of a brainless but fun action flick based on historical events. Much has been made of Zack Snyder's love for video games, and I think it shows in the movie.

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From: sovay Date: March 14th, 2007 06:13 pm (UTC) (Link)

The only trouble is, most adults these days aren't mature enough to handle fucked up shit, as the giggling from the audience during 300's rape scene demonstrated to me.

. . . Yeah. That's never a good sign. Ergh.

(I'm sure somewhere there's a film where a rape scene is meant to provoke giggles, but it doesn't sound as though this was it.)

During the slow motion march of the rippling muscled Spartans, they either tend not to remember or tend to forgive a previous scene where baby skulls sat at the bottom of a cliff.

Whereas if the audience is never allowed to forget, then you have a situation rather like 49th Parallel, where there's always a tension between the audience's sympathy for the story's heroes and repulsion at their ideals and actions. But then you can't cheer quite so wholeheartedly for Spartan kickassery.

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From: setsuled Date: March 15th, 2007 01:24 am (UTC) (Link)

Whereas if the audience is never allowed to forget, then you have a situation rather like 49th Parallel, where there's always a tension between the audience's sympathy for the story's heroes and repulsion at their ideals and actions. But then you can't cheer quite so wholeheartedly for Spartan kickassery.

That's an excellent point, and such a film would be far more enjoyable.

It always comes back to Powell and Pressburger, doesn't it? Actually, I'd already found a connexion;

Apparently, Frank Miller was inspired to make the original comic book by a 1962 film called The 300 Spartans, which featured Black Narcissus star David Farrar as Xerxes. I must say I'm intensely curious about that movie.

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From: stsisyphus Date: March 15th, 2007 01:57 pm (UTC) (Link)

Yeah, I was going to make a point of the fact that Miller wasn't even inspired by the original classical source, but by what appears to be a 1960s Cold-War analogue. I'll admit that I'm also curious about parallels between the two films.

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From: sovay Date: March 15th, 2007 07:09 pm (UTC) (Link)

a 1962 film called The 300 Spartans, which featured Black Narcissus star David Farrar as Xerxes. I must say I'm intensely curious about that movie.

Yeah. I am almost categorically inclined to avoid classically-set movies from that time (although The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964) is so much more fun than it had any right to be), but I do want to know what fifth-century Greece looks like when filtered through the Cold War. I've read at least one translation of Aristophanes' Lysistrata, for example, where the Spartans all have Russian accents—is that here the Persians' role? If you do see it, please let me know.

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From: stsisyphus Date: March 17th, 2007 05:03 am (UTC) (Link)

Well, it took me a week, but I posted what I could cobble together. It was hard not to rail more on my problems with Frank Miller, but whatever.

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