300: A Movie Evaluation

300: A Movie Evaluation

Many people hear that the movie 300 is a historically inaccurate movie of fantasy and write it off as a bad film. However, the story and its underlying message, the symbolism, and the cinematography makes 300 the greatest movie to ever hit the big screen.

The Story and its underlying message of 300 is the first aspect that really catches the viewer. 300 is told by the narrator, Dilios, who was sent back from battle by King Leonidas to relay the word of what the king and his 300 men endured in the Battle of Themopuylae. While 300 is not 100% historically accurate, the deeper message of the story is appealing to all audiences. In the forefront, 300 is about the Battle of Themopylae where 300 Spartans take on an army of hundreds of thousands of Persians who take and destroy everything in their path. However, the story is deeper than the battle itself. It is also a story of love and sacrifice for the greater good. The opening scene shows a Spartan baby boy being inspected over a cliff. Dilios explains, “When the boy was born, like all Spartans, he was inspected.” If the boy was not up to Spartan standards he was thrown away. Then, as Dilios describes, “At age 7, as is customary in Sparta, the boy was taken from his mother and plunged into a world of violence, manufactured by 300 years of Spartan warrior society to create the finest soldiers the world has ever known. The agoge, as it's called, forces the boy to fight, starves him, forces him to steal... and if necessary, to kill.” This is a tremendous sacrifice for a mother to make, but she does, as she knows that it is for the greater good of Sparta. Another perfect example of the film being about love and sacrifice comes when the Spartan King Leonidas has a conversation with his queen, Gorgo, after consulting the oracle. King Leonidas asks, “Then what must a king do to save his world when the very laws he has sworn to protect force him to do nothing?” His wife then tells him, “It is not a question of what a Spartan citizen should do, nor a husband, nor a king. Instead, ask yourself, my dearest love, what should a free man do?” Gorgo is telling him that although the oracle has told him he is not to go to war, he needs to do what is best for freedom, even if it means punishment from the oracle and the Ephors, the “wisemen” of Sparta who brought Leonidas to consult the oracle. The final example of 300 being more about love and sacrifice comes from Leonidas. As his captain begins to object to Leonidas talking to Persian “God King” Xerxes, Leonidas says, “Relax, old friend. If they assassinate me, all of Sparta goes to war. Pray they're that stupid. Pray we're that lucky.” Leonidas is willing to die for his country, if that is what is necessary for Sparta to survive, because he loves his country and his people.

The movie 300 is engrossed with symbolism. There are obvious United States versus the Middle East symbols in the movie, though there are times who represents who is questionable. King Leonidas, the king of Sparta, is representative of the United States’ leader George W. Bush. While it is accustomed for the King to follow the word of the Oracle, King Leonidas went to war claiming to just be stretching his legs with 300 bodyguards despite the Oracle’s words telling him there was to be no war with the Persians. This is parallel to the way George W. Bush handled getting the permission of congress in regards to Iraq and their weapons of mass destruction. Another example of the symbolism used in 300 is the scene of the Spartan hunchback, Ephialtes, betraying his King by going to the Persian “God-King” Xerxes out of revenge. When the Ephialtes asked