GO TO: 300 (2007) dir. Zack Snyder
...gives nearly any other film on this side of the century marker an insurmountable standard to claim the title as the most mythological storytelling display in 21st-century cinema
Zack Snyder’s incredibly stylized telling of the Battle of Thermopylae gives nearly any other film on this side of the century marker an insurmountable standard to claim the title as the most mythological storytelling display in 21st-century cinema. In a mythic sense (and only in this sense), the Greeks fight for freedom; the Persians stand for slavery, bondage, and an old world; the Spartans, with the all-time everyman Gerard Butler playing the god-like King Leonidas of Sparta, clash their swords against an all-oppressive tyrant hellbent on world domination. The absurd bloodshed reaches a legendary climax only theomachy could pass. To borrow from Shaolin Soccer, one side is “Team Evil” and the underdogs that face them represent the hopes of all crushed by the boot of oppression.
300 is one of those rare Hollywood films with the chutzpah to look different, and regardless of one’s evaluation of the entire film, Snyder’s auteur vision must be at least appreciated. It’s also central to the experience of watching the Greek epic. The early digital look of the film makes excellent use of the unbeholden risk of the new tool in a way that today’s filmmakers often feel blinded to, and Snyder capitalizes on the flexibility and (most importantly) the imaginative potential of the digital camera to bend to his vision for a film rather than to create a film from recycled easily achieved visuals.
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