300

The story of the famous last stand of the Spartans in the pass at Thermopylae is well known, even after a span of nearly two and half thousand years. It is still regarded as the best example of a small force being able to defeat a much larger one by dint of superior tactics and training.

Frank Miller's graphic novel and now this film retell the tale in a stunningly visceral way. Some people have criticized this film for just being a visual spectacle, which is a little like criticizing Picasso's Guernica for lacking dialogue and a plot. The acting is nothing to write home about - Gerrard Butler in the lead role of King Leonidas emotes like a young Brian Blessed - and the scenes of political intrigue are merely there to fill out the back story. No, the battle is the entire raison d'etre of this film, and by crikey, it does exactly what it says on the tin.

Shield walls clash, spears impale soft flesh, war elephants charge, arrows famously block out the sun, decapitated heads and severed limbs fly in glorious arcs and blood splatters the screen as if flicked from an artist's brush. The use of highly stylized CGI and a particular muted pallette is simply stunning, with every scene being perfectly framed and composed for best effect.

The conclusion of the film - namely that a noble sacrifice is a worthy aspiration - is one that sits uneasily with me. Some people have seen the subtext of the film as being a paper thin metaphor for the conflict between the west (and specifically the United States) and the arab world. The gung ho Spartans even sound like a troop of US marines with their guttural cheers - I half expected them to shout 'Sparta! Fuck Yeah!' at one point. It is also possible to switch the perspective completely though and view the decadent and overbearing Persians as representing the US with its demands for submission from every other nation, and the Spartans with their willingness to die to further their beliefs as equivalent to the jihadists of today.

King Leonidas certainly achieved immortality, of a sort, although I can't help wondering whether if I were in his place I would have preferred to have ended my days in peaceful anonymity.