Farewell To Moussaka

It grieves a man to confess his failures, his weaknesses.

Especially when those failures result not only in the deaths of hundreds of thousands but in the resultant non-existence of billions of billions more.

In my heart I am responsible for a mass genocide too heinous to contemplate. The snuffing out of an entire culture upon which most of the Western world has been founded. The pillars of democracy lie smashed and as dust at my sandaled feet. Philosophy and play writing have been set back millennia. Ray Harryhausen would have spent most of his adult life out of work.

But for a small quirk of fate (and reality) Greece – the classic Athens of ancient history – would have been utterly smashed and wiped from the face of the earth on my say so. Some of the more erudite historians among you are going to point out to me that pretty much happened anyway but don’t spoil a good anecdotal fantasy when I’m spinning one.

The wife and I went to see “300: Rise Of An Empire” on Saturday.

We didn’t expect to be bathed in an academic recreation of pre-history; we expected to be bathed in blood.

And we were. A tidal wave of CGI spatter patterns and arterial Jackson Pollocks cartwheeled and rooster-tailed across the screen in a ruby carnival of spear thrusts, sword flourishes and shield jabs. Limbs were liberated. Guts were eviscerated. Necks were relieved of gristly burdens.

Boats were rammed. Boobs were bared. Six packs were enhanced.

Fans of the original “300” won’t be disappointed by this sequel. It delivers and then some.

Sullivan Stapleton as Themistocles may not have the stature of Gerard Butler’s King Leonidas but he certainly manages the presence. His performance is an artful mix of machismo and convincing battlefield intelligence... enough that I was able to overlook the slight Australian twang of his accent. Lena Headey reprises her role as Queen Gorgo and it is nice to see her actually cutting her way through some of Xerxe’s black clad hordes rather than just looking coolly superior from afar but it is Eva Green as Artemisia who steals the show. Both visceral and yet weirdly supernatural she is by far the strongest character on the screen. A seething brunette maelstrom of contempt, bitterness and vengeance.

Her attempts to seduce Themistocles verge on the sadistic / masochistic. The violence is matched on both sides but it is Artemisia who inevitably ends up on top like a mocking Succubus.

And it is at that moment that I knew in the very depth of my soul that, had any of this been real and I had been Themistocles, I would have sold Greece down the river without a second thought. Thus proving that despite my pretensions to the contrary I am no high minded poet but a base animal of flesh and (non-CGI’d) blood.

Goodbye moussaka. Goodbye drachma.

Goodbye Sparta. Goodbye Olympus.

Goodbye Democrates.

Hello beautiful Persian rugs and buoyantly curved Arabian jugs*.

Utterly no contest.

*Ahem.

Immortals

There are times when you spurn the healthy option. When edifying foods with a high nutritional content are just not what you crave. Instead you want the hamburger. And you want it with cheese. Lots of cheese. You want it cheap and a little bit throwaway. You want it fun rather than worthy.

And so it was, in such a peculiar hunger, that Karen and I went to see Immortals on Saturday night. From the trailers we’d kind of sussed what kind of film it was going to be. Pure escapism. Not at all serious. Just beefcake, epic battles and spectacular effects. The only question was: would it be as excruciatingly wooden as the Clash Of The Titans remake or would it manage to recreate the magic of watching an old Ray Harryhausen movie on the telly when you were a kid?

I’m pleased to say it was more of the latter than the former. It’s not a classic. No one is going to get an Oscar. But neither was it tiresome and stilted. It was ridiculous, of course, but then it is impossible to portray Greek myths on the screen without them appearing ridiculous. As soon as you put muscular men and impossibly pneumatic women in skimpy gold costumes and flimsy togas – no matter how much they may appear to embody Zeus and Athena – they inevitably appear camp and like something from a Carry On movie. Couple that with the production people who gave us the 6-pack rich 300 and you have gratuitous violence as well as gratuitous musculature. If you’re a fan of fab abs and skulls being pulped with big golden hammers you’re going to love Immortals.

If Ray Harryhausen had had access to modern technology this is the kind of film I’m sure he would have made. Once you surrender to the Doug McClure-esque absurdity of the storyline it really does feel like being a kid again. Don’t fight it. Roll with it. This isn’t Shakespeare (or even the person who claimed to be Shakespeare). It’s a hamburger with cheese. It’s naughty but nice. It’ll put a couple of inches on your thighs but so what? It’s coming up to Christmas. You’ll have to diet in the New Year anyway.

Mickey Rourke gives good value as King Hyperion though given his bulk you’d imagine he would have been better placed to play Zeus. His performance is very physical. I think he is quoted as saying he didn’t get “all method” about it. I don’t blame him; there really was no need, though I can’t help but feel wistful about his surprisingly subtle performance all those years ago in Angelheart.

Zeus is played by the surprisingly svelte Luke Evans who looks bizarrely like Action Man, the one with the eagle eyes and grippy fingers but nevertheless convinces the viewer that he is indeed the father of the gods. Henry Cavill, fresh out of The Tudors, seems to have spent a few months down the gym and an equal amount of time on a sunbed but throws himself into the part of Theseus with gusto – which is odd given the luckless life Theseus seems to lead. Mother murdered before his eyes, he gets beaten up, finds a magic bow, gets his end way just once, loses the magic bow and then dies killing the bad guy. In between, of course, he does dispatch a great number of masked warriors with superlative spear work. One can’t help but think he is compensating for lack of opportunities elsewhere.

All in all this is great entertainment provided you don’t take it at all seriously. Director Tarsem Singh gives everything a slightly Indian tint which actually marries quite well with the original Greek blueprint though I was waiting for a Bollywood-style song and dance routine about halfway through.

Mickey Rourke does Bollywood. Now there’s a film I’d love to see.

Letting Rip...

The call came through late yesterday afternoon. “Man unconscious on the floor of the baby change.”

I put the phone down with a weary sigh and performed a precautionary save of the revolutionary Word document I’d been working on all day which described a plan that, if implemented immediately, would save the council millions of pounds in these cash strapped times (sack ALL the managers and the executives. To be honest I’m not sure if my bosses will be willing to embrace this radical approach – curse them and their shortsightedness).

Great, I thought. Another vomit laced drunk with a scabby top lip and trainer bottoms that have failed to act as an emergency colostomy bag. I’ll have to call out the paramedics to scrape him off the floor.

I headed downstairs to investigate and for once was pleasantly surprised to find a young man in his early twenties merely asleep on the floor of our topnotch (cough!) baby change facilities. No smell of booze. No smell of vomit. No seepage of bum gravy warranting calls for BP to come in and clean up the immediate environment.

He was just asleep. Sound asleep. Breathing deeply and contentedly. His head lying on his carefully folded jacket and the nappy bin strategically placed between his head and the door so that should an unwary mother with a pewling toddler rush in to avail themselves of the baby changing mat he wouldn’t wake up to find his brains had been twatted out of his skull and splattered up the wall behind him.

Some considerable thought had obviously gone into this.

Although the phrase “let sleeping dogs lie” came into my head he just couldn’t stay there. This is a baby changing facility not a doss-house (Leamington’s drunks please take note).

So I tried to rouse him. I tried calling politely. I tried calling rudely. I tried shouting like Gerard Butler in 300 (this is not a youth hostel – THIS IS SPARTA!) but ol’ Rip Van Wrinkle wasn’t waking for anyone or anything. I even tried the old armpit poke but that had no effect whatsoever. He was so deeply asleep he was in danger of being kidnapped by 7 dwarves.

Part of me felt envious. As someone who is continually woken before 6am by my eldest boy bouncing action figures of the metal bars of his bunk bed I admired this youth's ability to shut out all external stimuli and remain furiously, passionately asleep.

Another part of me just thought he was a git and I therefore rang the police to see if a bit of politically incorrect truncheon action might encourage him to move on to his own bedroom or at least the nearest furniture store.

The police were amused and said they’d send someone out as “a priority but not an emergency”. I don’t blame them. It was plain this guy was in the best of health. He was just asleep. Asleep on the cold hard floor of a public amenity immersed in the sweltering odour of about 30 overflowing nappies.

While I waited for the police I thought I’d give waking Mr Sleepyhead another go. I returned to the baby change. I saw the sink in the corner and inspiration struck. A good handful of ice cold water was summarily dropped at great height straight onto Coma Boy’s head.

Boy did he wake up. I stepped back just in case he barked but he just looked nonplussed. He wiped his face and looked around at the immense puddle that had suddenly formed around him. I could see his brain formulating the question but thought it best not to be too forthcoming as to the source of the deluge.

I checked after his well being and suggested he move on. With much grunting (that surely only his mother could love) he concurred and shambled from the building a darn sight cleaner than when he came in.

I returned to the phone and called off the fuzz. I then returned to my Word document and felt... strangely buoyant. Strangely wired. It had been fun. I’d enjoyed it. Tipping water onto someone. Hmm.

Dear readers, I fear a cruel appetite has been awoken in me. Should you ever find yourself in my neck of the woods suffering from exhaustion or even narcolepsy don’t expect any sympathy or understanding from me. You see, I’m just waiting for the call. I have a large bucket under my desk now and a 2 litre bottle of water in the fridge. It’s chilling nicely.

And it has your name on it.

Up The Spears Of Sparta!

Karen and I experienced the visual butch-fest that is 300 the other day – the latest film by Zack Snyder based on the graphic novel of the same name by Frank Miller.

And what a visual feast it was too. Beautifully restrained colour palettes, titan-esque picture composition, manly voices deeper than Barry White’s g-string and a super baddy who was camper than Charles Hawtrey in a pink tent pitched by the side of a Cornish Maypole.

There are definite homoerotic motifs present throughout the film – the Spartans are all incredibly muscular and spend the entire film prowling about with hardly any clothes on, thrusting their mighty spears into an unending host of enemies. The main bad guy himself, Xerxes, is a 9ft giant who in the words of one reviewer (whose name I forget) looks and acts more like RuPaul than a Persian God-King-Warrior. He is also in charge of a grotesque harem of carnivalesque and misshapen concubines that reminded me more of a monster-mash of creatures from Clive Barker’s Hellraiser films than a true Persian harem. But hey – what do I know?

The audience is therefore presented with the implied effeminacy, homosexuality and fetishism of the Persians and the manly, strength-as-virtue, battle honour heroics of the hugely outnumbered Spartans. For me such over-simplified divisions are a little too uncomfortable to palate. I was also uncomfortable with the politics of the film – the West (Greeks) versus the East (Persia) – given the present world predicament, though the whole premise could easily be turned upside-down when you consider that the West / America has more in common with the vast hordes and fire power of Xerxes than the poor outnumbered Spartans facing invasion by a foreign enemy...

The film also shamelessly glorifies violence and death in battle. I realize the film makers are merely trying to give us a flavour of the Spartan ethos that led 300 men to face an entire army but in the morally conscientious world of 2007 such machismo carries undertones of foolhardiness – for all the Spartan’s stand is deeply heroic and truly admirable.

Despite my problems with the film though I really enjoyed it. Yes it is violent but there is something cartoon-like about the violence that stays true to the visual nature of the original graphic novel: it’s cartoony but not in a desensitizing sense although it does allow the audience to offset the horror of bloodshed a little. That sounds like a paradox but I can’t really explain it any better. Go see the film and you’ll understand what I mean. Visually the film is stunning – it is sumptuously photographed – and provided you disengage your politics and any historical knowledge beforehand it’s a film that most people I think will enjoy.

You’ll never see a big man’s spear handled so well...