Years after its first release in 2006, Zack Snyder's adaptation of the Frank Miller graphic novel, 300, is still considered one of the best visually arresting movie ever. It was a gruesome orgy of CGI blood-spurts and thunderous group-grunts. The movie had been a sensory experience of all the oh-shit decapitations and inexplicable mutant attackers and portentous catchphrases.
As soon as the buzz wore off — and it wore off very slowly — one cannot but help compare it to the prevailing political situation between the United States and Iran.
Snyder famously did whatever he could to make the movie echo its source material, a 1998 comic from Frank Miller, as closely as possible. Individual shots are precise recreations of comic-book panels. Grotesque, distended character sketches are rendered in loving detail.
Snyder also shot the whole thing on a green-screen set because real, actual mountains and cliffs wouldn't jut and loom the way they'd done in the books. This wasn't the first time someone so slavishly recreated one of Miller's comics; Robert Rodriguez had done the same thing with Sin City in 2005, even giving Miller a co-directing credit.
But 300 was even more striking in its fealty, partly because it's a more sweeping, immersive cinematic vision and partly because it more closely mirrors Miller's worldview.
The movie was also warmly received by websites focusing on comics and video games. Comic Book Resources' Mark Cronan found the film compelling, leaving him "with a feeling of power, from having been witness to something grand." IGN's Todd Gilchrist acclaimed Zack Snyder as a cinematic visionary and "a possible redeemer of modern moviemaking."
The movie was based on a real story, illustrating the Battle Of Thermopylae, in which a small band of Spartans and other Greek fighters unsuccessfully defended a coastal pass from a huge number of Persian invaders, holding them for a week before all dying in close combat.
For Miller and Snyder — the Spartans were unambiguous heroes, death-gargling ultimate warriors who held off the forces of darkness through the sheer strength of their martial will. In Snyder's hands, the Spartan king Leonidas and his comrades make constant speeches about freedom and self-determination. It shows the Spartan way of life represents a sort of self-sufficient way of being, an elevated warrior mind-state. It is a nation of patriotic heroes who will defend their families and loved ones from all kinds of invasion.
It opens on a scene that literally glorifies patriotism and abhors weak-minds and social justice ideology. The first thing that was featured is a chasm full of baby skulls, the remains of the infants who were deemed unfit.
Leonidas has no visible disabilities, so he gets to live. Then, as a kid, he's indoctrinated into the warrior society, taught to fight or die, then sent off to survive on his own. He goes into the snow and kills an enormous wolf. Snyder presents all this brilliantly.
The movie later justified the killing, especially after it’s a hunchbacked troll escapee, not only betrays Leonidas, but the whole country as well.
The Persian side, on the other hand, looks a lot more like an orgy pit, filled with some sort of appalling gender-fluid hellish creatures. Even the emperor Xerxes is a 9-foot faggot with a seductive foghorn for a voice and a face full of jangling piercings.
As soon as the buzz wore off — and it wore off very slowly — one cannot but help compare it to the prevailing political situation between the United States and Iran.
Snyder famously did whatever he could to make the movie echo its source material, a 1998 comic from Frank Miller, as closely as possible. Individual shots are precise recreations of comic-book panels. Grotesque, distended character sketches are rendered in loving detail.
Snyder also shot the whole thing on a green-screen set because real, actual mountains and cliffs wouldn't jut and loom the way they'd done in the books. This wasn't the first time someone so slavishly recreated one of Miller's comics; Robert Rodriguez had done the same thing with Sin City in 2005, even giving Miller a co-directing credit.
But 300 was even more striking in its fealty, partly because it's a more sweeping, immersive cinematic vision and partly because it more closely mirrors Miller's worldview.
The movie was also warmly received by websites focusing on comics and video games. Comic Book Resources' Mark Cronan found the film compelling, leaving him "with a feeling of power, from having been witness to something grand." IGN's Todd Gilchrist acclaimed Zack Snyder as a cinematic visionary and "a possible redeemer of modern moviemaking."
The movie was based on a real story, illustrating the Battle Of Thermopylae, in which a small band of Spartans and other Greek fighters unsuccessfully defended a coastal pass from a huge number of Persian invaders, holding them for a week before all dying in close combat.
For Miller and Snyder — the Spartans were unambiguous heroes, death-gargling ultimate warriors who held off the forces of darkness through the sheer strength of their martial will. In Snyder's hands, the Spartan king Leonidas and his comrades make constant speeches about freedom and self-determination. It shows the Spartan way of life represents a sort of self-sufficient way of being, an elevated warrior mind-state. It is a nation of patriotic heroes who will defend their families and loved ones from all kinds of invasion.
It opens on a scene that literally glorifies patriotism and abhors weak-minds and social justice ideology. The first thing that was featured is a chasm full of baby skulls, the remains of the infants who were deemed unfit.
Leonidas has no visible disabilities, so he gets to live. Then, as a kid, he's indoctrinated into the warrior society, taught to fight or die, then sent off to survive on his own. He goes into the snow and kills an enormous wolf. Snyder presents all this brilliantly.
The movie later justified the killing, especially after it’s a hunchbacked troll escapee, not only betrays Leonidas, but the whole country as well.
The Persian side, on the other hand, looks a lot more like an orgy pit, filled with some sort of appalling gender-fluid hellish creatures. Even the emperor Xerxes is a 9-foot faggot with a seductive foghorn for a voice and a face full of jangling piercings.
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