300

There are movies, and let it be known that the ones I talk about are precious few in number, that aren't merely movies, but existence altering visual spectacles that reaffirm your belief in your own ability to be influenced beyond your wildest dreams.
300 is one such movie.

It is almost impossible, I strongly believe, to watch a movie like 300 and not praise it publicly. Which is probably what prompts me to sit down in front of a computer at three in the morning, merely a few hours before my first minor test, with an aim to making it apparent, to all who would care to listen, exactly how brilliant the movie is.

The film reeks of virility. It's a two hour long testosterone driven slaughter-fest, with supercopious doses of overstated masculinity. It's like the film takes you by the testicles and yanks you into this world of sex and violence where men are real men, women are real women, and honour, duty and freedom are dicta people live, and die, by.
300 allows you to vent the frustration that is very much an integral part of being a male in contemporary society. For two hours, 300 allows you to feel like a real man. Within these couple of hours, you long for combat, you guiltlessly lust after women, you hunger for blood, and you crave for battle. Within these couple of hours, you can give yourself up to your baser instincts, to feelings of rigidity, of absolute and irrefutable power, of stubborn devotion to duty and intransigent truths, of intolerance, of honour unto the very end, and of intrinsic superiority. Which is probably why you walk out of the cinema hall so fulfilled and satisfied, for once having been able to let out that part of your self which society deems unfit for public portrayal.

The screenplay is beautifully done, as I am sure anyone who has read the graphic novel would agree. Each frame is a work of art. The slow-motions are cringe-inducing, coupled with one of the most haunting soundtracks I have been fortunate enough to come across in recent times. When the arrows fall, you are nearly compelled to duck for cover, and as bodies get de-limbed and heads get severed, you almost cower in your seats, eyes half-closed, expecting the warm spatter of freshly spilt blood that abounds on screen, ominously threatening, to drench you and run slowly down your skin.
And when I say blood, I do not mean the sickly pale-red, syrupy variety that we seem to come across so often in most movies these days. What I am talking about is thick, dark and rich, globular liquid, viscous enough to give my fluid dynamics professor pause.

The narration is impeccable, with Dilios (David Wenham, of Faramir fame) taking over the reins from the narrator in the Frank Miller version. The dialogue is brilliantly written, but this, once again, I would mostly, although not wholly, attribute to the graphic novel. What the movie has intended to do, and undeniably succeeded in doing, is to start with the graphic novel as a basic stepping stone, and then build upon it to achieve a level of spectacle seldom seen before. The movie, and I do expect and eagerly anticipate quite a bit of opposition to this belief, more than lives up to the graphic novel, and achieves so much more.

For then there is Lena Headey, who as Queen Gorgo, is simply awe-inspiring. She brings into the character the intensity and toughness it needs, without once compromising on her feminity. Her strong face, set defiantly through much of the movie, only serves to reinforce her womanliness, and her very feminine concerns about her husband and her son. She becomes the cornerstone of the entire movie in that brief moment when she faintly nods in tacit approval when Leonidas asks her to decide the fate of the Persian emissary who comes asking for 'Land and Water'. In that one brief moment, I am quite sure I fell in love with her about a million times.
And how she works magic with a single, coarse, unadorned piece of simple white cloth is something that can only be experienced by watching the movie, and for that magic alone, if nothing else, the movie is worth watching.