Sparta

I watched 300 yesterday. I know, I know, I’m a few years late.
I hadn’t felt like watching, to tell you the truth.
Anyhow.

So I’m watching 300. Sparta, as seen through the eyes of modern America.
I was almost offended.
Especially at the beginning, with this skinny kid against a wolf that looks nothing like a wolf and the choice of colorimetry.
I grumbled. Gneu gneu, that wasn’t it at all… etc.
And then okay. I accept that Japan is sending back to us an absolutely zany West, so why grumble if America is sending back a heroic fantasy antiquity?

I set aside my objections and accepted the film.
There are some scenes that are just incredible – the fight scenes, I was blown away, by the cinematography, the choreography and the intensity of the actors.
All right, I was wrong not to go for it “at the right time”, it’s a totally excellent film, which digests a breathtaking historical episode in its own way and adds a whole host of elements from its own culture.

So when I read – and more and more often, it seems that Europe is dying – that it’s all over, that there’s no future beyond the fall, that everything has been done, said, written and filmed – frankly, it exasperates me.

Of course it doesn’t. The old things have been done. Future ones will come, with their own touch, added to the old things (you’ll notice that on this point, I don’t vary one iota).
300 made me want to reread The Persians. – old thing. To see the play – impossible new thing in France at the moment. And to play Spartan Total Warrior.