Monday 27 September 2010

What is your profession?

Last night, on Five, there was the TV premiere of "300".

Believe it or not, I went to see it at the cinema when it came out, with a more than enthusiastic husband. I laughed from beginning to end, as I did again yesterday.
Because, let's admit it, that movie is hilarious: "Spartans! What is your profession?" and the consequent Auh! Auh! Auh! was the most common joke among me and my friends, especially if we were involved in sport contests. It made us feel like total bonkers and at the same time it was nice, bonding.

The reasons why I am writing this post about a testosterone movie, as you might be wondering, are two: with this, I open a new section of the blog, dedicated to reviews and many other N.E.A.R. - Not Exactly Art Related things. The second is that "300", directed by Zack Snyder, is a literal shot-for-shot adaption of the graphic novel by Frank Miller.

In fact, visually speaking, "300" is a comic strip translated for the big screen and, because of this, loved or hated by critics and the public. I read with great interest about the complaints on historical mistakes, the grudge bore by Iranians because of the way Americans depicted their ancestors the Persians, and the nonsense of the dialogues (Persian: "Our arrows will obscure the sun!" Spartan: "Then we'll fight in the shade." Delightfully yob-ish) but I won't discuss the plot here, just the "translation". Movies are made of image frames, and each frame, in my opinion, constitutes a unique "artist" vision. Snyder's one is extreme, fascinating and unreal at the same time. And, for "unreal", I mean even more unreal than a movie normally is, because it is in the nature of a movie to be something else from reality. For its strong graphic flavour, with every frame digitally reduce to its essential contrasts of light and dark, the natural colours almost erased from the palette, this work is neither a movie nor a comic strip, entering the realm of the undefinable tableaux vivant. Images conceived for the printed paper will inevitably clash with the celluloid world if literally transposed to it.

Although the result of "300" is fine, and visually speaking acceptable in some ways as an extreme, interesting experiment, I think that, as a "visual artist", Snyder made just a little mistake: wanting to justify his particular vision through an allegedly accurate referral to ancient history. This is the so much sought after connection with reality, sometimes pursued by both directors and the public, that in the end spoils the magic of cinema. A movie is there to remind us that everything is possible... in our imagination. The moving images just give shapes to this idea, with no need to convince us about the plausibility of certain facts. Snyder himself called Miller's graphic world "surreal" and wanted to reproduce this mood in his movie, so what was the need for historical facts? Not digging properly into history may lead to superficial results and that's exactly what happens here: everything is left on a very baroque surface with loads of style, but no depth.

In the end, "300" is just an interpretation of a legendary battle, consciounsly parodying the notions of glory and dying for the honour of the homeland. Such an absurd - and indeed surreal - movie to become a classic.

All right, I did say this post would be not art related, but I couldn't help such professional bias. After all, what is my profession?

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