The battle at Thermopylae happened 2500 years ago, when the persians invaded the greek mainland, defended by a collection of city state armies including the notorious spartans. This movie is based on a semi-fictional cartoon by Miller, while still keeping the main backbone of the actual story. The fictionalisation, lies mostly in the characterisation of the historical persons involved in the conflict and how they are exaggerated and made fantastical.
Now, i will go out on a limb here, or so it might seem. I think i can argue well enough. My principle is .. look for the "crazy". The director, Zack Snyder, was brought up in the religous sect called Christian Science. Their philosophical basis is, that nothing exists as a reality, everything is in your mind. Therefore ilnesses, do not exist in a body they are only a lack of prayer. Therefore they do not use medicine for instance.
Now how does that show in this movie. Well reality is distorted to become a sort of mental nightmare. Colours are enhanced or twisted and movements are slowed or hastened and so on. This is clearly a "mental" exercise completely. The spartan boys are put through unbelievably harsh physical and mental discipline. They are being conformed to a sect or a collective, that wants to subdue their indivial power into a collective power, by destroying their sense of body, to become a tool or an attachment to a brain, that is conforming to a collective. More important even, is the role of women. They are both portrayed as emphatic and conforming. This is the classic passive aggressive mother, who wants their sons to be caring for them, but psychopathic to other men. The hand that rocks the craddle, rules the world. When a soldier returns with the dead king´s necklace, the mother puts it around the sons neck to imply. "Now you have to go and be violent to protect me".
There are clear references to war on terror in the fight against the muslims, represented as the persians and an ageold christian conflict going back to Jerusalem. There is the proverbial judas character, who goes behind the heros back etc. This is a christian fantasy based on years of indoctrination and a gynocentric ideology behind it that is so carefully hidden in full view.
There is no emotion in this movie whatsoever. The sulking women or the macho men are just facades, to cover up their lack of empathy. This is a completely cold and inhuman world. Now i am not sure that the director actually wants this to come upfront, deliberately. And maybe that is the greatest point of interest in the movie. The amount of blood and horror is staggering and putting it in a artistic context, glorifies violence as a beautiful and desirable endevour. It actually makes me sad to watch this, so i am not untouched by it. But i am not feeling sad for the persons acting out on the screen, i am sad for the people in the real world, because reality does exist, who gets of on this.
rating: 4/10