300

Today I went to see 300, accompanied by 2 of my sons, both of whom had been looking forward to the film with great anticipation. I'd read extremely mixed reviews last week - some despised it, some found it ridiculous and silly, and a few thoroughly enjoyed it. Well, I have to say I found it great fun, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Yes, it was preposterous on many levels, and it is without doubt, one of the campest films I've seen for a long time. I suspect the homoeroticism might have been intentional and I'm sure the gay audience will love it - all those torsos, all that male bonding, and the costumes.
Yes, it was a triumph of style over content, but what style! It looked marvellous, beautifully composed, with Frank Miller's comic strip successfully visualised.
It'd be easy to ridicule the Spartans self-image, but the male bonding was an expression of a world-view which did not recognise the individual, a concept alien to us now and difficult to portray. Our sensibilities cannot encompass such a mentality. Nevertheless, they were like that and their commitment to the group at the expense of the individual is something to admire, marvel at, and make us think a bit while we're enjoying the ride.
My sons did a fair bit of ancient history at school and were far more knowledgeable than me about the events portrayed in the film. It's historical authenticity was fairly minimal, they said, but they felt it didn't really matter. The Spartans' feat at Thermopolyae was worth celebrating, and their mad courage was brilliantly conveyed, they felt.
I can see that some would find the film pretty worthless, but I didn't; and Gerard Miller's primal shout of 'SPARTANS' as he led them into battle was pretty thrilling. I thought Cosmo Landesman's review in the Sunday Times was spot-on; he found it 'fantastic, voluptuous, bloody, ferocious, and, dare I say it, sublime'. He's absolutely right when he calls it 'a romantic celebration of the Spartan view of war, heroism and self-sacrifice...a film that dares to say that war can be noble'. He comments on the irony-free quality of the film and how refreshing this is - I totally agree; sometimes one gets a little tired of subversion, and he praises its 'dedication to detail' and 'determination to present something the viewer hasn't seen before'. The critics who sneered, and several looked down on the film from a very great height, missed the point almost wilfully. But I know that many people, probably mostly male, will throughly enjoy it. Traditional male values are unfashionable, sometimes for good reason, but there are some qualities that should be celebrated and 300 does that brilliantly.