300
May 30, 2007 Leave a comment
James and I went and saw "300" last night. We went to the Dendy Premium cinemas for the first time which was rather a treat.
Anyway, entertaining movie if you don't mind fighting. I remarked that there was many an academic paper in the depiciton of the male body and its extreme masculinity, not to mention the whole orientalism aspect of the movie. Also gender issues more generally – the weird feminisation of Xerses and so forth. James said "it's just a comic book". Although he did agree with me that it would be interesting to examine why we are now seeing this return in emphasis on the male (highly built) body (see also Casino Royale) which hasn't really been around since Rambo times. At least all the talk of "freedom" didn't grate quite as much as it does when it occurs in a film like Robin Hood – Greek society did, I guess, have that concept down to an extent – even if it was about certain classes etc (my mother can step in here and correct me).
So the visual style was really interesting anyway, but what on earth was that accent that David Wenham was using?Very bizarre.