300 the movie

I don't normally go out to see movies. I am not easily entertained by the silver screen. I have to admit though, I am a sucker for pseudo-historical movies that carry a message, or at least provide a riveting story. I did not expect anything less from this movie, and I was not disappointed. Although, I suppose the story did lack depth for most viewers. Not sure why, perhaps it has something to do with familiarity with the historical tale as told by Herodotus?

I must confess, that I hesitate to classify myself politically, as I do not see politics as any sort of answer to the world's problems. However, I do have a relatively strong view of political freedom. It is important to me, because government should never get in the way of law-abiding, peace-loving citizens. And I know that sort of freedom does not come cheap. So yeah, I still love the Mel Gibson movies Braveheart and Patriot for that reason. Even encouraged my own son to familiarize himself with those stories at a very young age, and I did not hesitate bringing him to see the movie 300 .

The movie was definitely gory. Actually, it was mild compared to Gibson's The Passion . Just very bloody and a lot of decapitations. Sorry did not count them all, but there seems to have been more than three, and if anyone knows better, feel free to correct me. Aside from the gore, I found the movie to be very moving. King Leonidas saying “freedom does not come free” was what the rest of the story centered around. Even if the movie was not completely accurate (Xerces never physically came to oversee the battle did he?) it contained some surprising details found in Herodotus' account of the battle.

Most people are not familiar with the term “ Grand Narrative”. Essentially, if you have resided in the United States for at least one or more generations, the “Grand Narrative” would be the version of Western History you were spoon fed in high school or college. It is a “meta-narrative” designed by such twentieth century literary experts as Mortimer Adler, and Will Durant. Essentially, what was done in creating the narrative, is they picked and chose different parts of ancient history, to try and present a cohesive tale of the United States' doctrine of freedom and democracy. David Gres in his From Plato to NATO on page 56 gives us an example of the Narrative's cafeteria-style historical antidotes:

“Not all Greeks or even Athenians agreed that democracy was a good thing. Many thought Xerces had a point when he equated freedom with chaos and a lack of discipline. In the Peloponnesian War, democratic Athens lost to militaristic Sparta, and in 338 B.C. All of Greece fell to Philip of Macedon and his son, Alexander the Great. Alexander defeated and conquered the Persian Empire and launched the Hellenistic age, which lasted until the Roman Empire, in the first century B.C., swallowed up all the cities and countries around the Mediterranean. The Grand Narrative found few Magic Moments in the Hellenistic period, which stood as a sort of afternoon culture, living off the literature and philosophy of the classical era and spreading knowledge of the Greek civilization eastward into Asia and westward to Rome, but without great originality of its own.”

I believe the end result of that narrative has been disastrous, but that is another matter. Anyways, King Leonidas' famous last stand at the cliffs of Thermopylae against the Persians in 480 BC, was an event upon which much of the “Grand Narrative” used in its defense for the historic Greek roots of American freedom and democracy. The problem lies in the fact that such a narrative ignores the fact that the Spartans were not a free people, nor were they a democracy. The movie 300 was certainly an interpretation of the historic event in terms of the American “Grand Narrative”.

All things aside, if the sight of lots of blood and decapitations does not disturb you to the point where you must walk out of the theater, and you believe freedom does not come free, this might be a worthwhile film for you.