[class3shock]

I'm not a scholar of Greek history but as layman, I thought it was good and good enough to recommend. Visually it is quite beautiful and despite what the review states it does have an ethical thread at its core it follows. There are some choices I just don't understand; the armor, mostly the Trojans and Agamemnon's, looks like something that would be on a low budget scifi tv show and jamming a bunch of well known celebrities in bit parts is just distracting. If you can get behind a pretty, modern day take, on the story I would give it a shot.

[kombookcha]

Personally I thought that the odd looking fantasy-armor was an interesting way to highlight that what we are seeing is a story, not history. As highlighted by the storyteller in Odysseus' palace. But I think it also ties in thematically with the heroes-and-monsters aspect.

The first we see of Agamemnon is his crazy armor with the golden spine running down the back of the helmet, and it immediately establishes that some people in this story are much larger than life, so much so that they seem sort of monstrous and offputting. Agamemnon looks like Darth Vader, striding forward in that black and gold armor. And in a way, Agamemnon has made himself a monster to achieve his personal ambition, sacrificing his daughter at the outset. When he's later killed in bed by his embittered wife, it's in maybe the one scene of the movie where we see him without his armor - having returned home and stripped it off. Perhaps he thinks he can be a person again. But he is no longer the man he was, and his home too has become hostile to him. In making himself a legend, he has shut himself out from the life he had.

More broadly, he (and the kings who went with him) has perhaps even destroyed that way of life entirely by violating larger social contracts, such as taking Troy by a deceptive offering to a shared god. Which is the core shame that's hounding Odysseus through his trials (along with some survivor's guilt).

Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised by the movie. It felt both familiar and fresh at the same time, and made a lot of initially odd seeming choices that I wound up finding interesting and thematic.

Big recommendation.

[niekiepriekie]

Very much agreed. I found the part about Agamemnon very well done. He's a mystery for a long time and then that very short homecoming.

Awesome.

[protocolture]

>the armor, mostly the Trojans and

I read a couple comments from an extra who had worn the same costume in at least 2 other films.

Between that, the Viking Longboat and the name brand actors falling out of every hole, my instinct is that he was asked to tune the film for a very particular budget/advertising campaign and had little to work with outside of that.

Its like, yes you can film here, here and here, and have weird custom shit here, but these actors will fill seats for marketing so you need to pay them, and then make do with whatever money is left.

[close04]

Some people see the movie as the typical Hollywood fiction and in that light you can only judge it in isolation. Good action, solid characters.

As the screen adaptation of a work written about a real person, you’d need to have the prerequisite knowledge of history, the written work, the person.

These are very different points of view. If you didn’t know better you could enjoy a movie portraying Trump and the ICE (insert whatever real life situation fits your country better) as unsung heroes, reluctantly doing what is necessary to defend the land from foreign invaders. Once you get a glimpse of the history, the fiction is harder to enjoy.

[antonvs]

> reluctantly

Stretching credulity a bit there.