Movie Review--Troy

"Men are haunted by the vastness of eternity.  And so we ask ourselves, will our actions echo across the centuries?  Will strangers hear our names long after we're gone and wonder who we were, how bravely we fought, how fiercely we loved?"

--Odysseus, Troy

"Before you came to Sparta, I was just a ghost."

--Helen, Troy

In excluding any direct portrayal of the polytheistic background events and Olympian deities described in The Iliad, Troy focuses instead on the actions of people who claim to serve different deities in the Greek pantheon as some of them periodically question themselves and their ideas during the Trojan War.  The human emphasis helps the strong acting and personal motivations of each take the spotlight.  This also changes the way certain key events are presented.  Rather than being effectually kidnapped by Paris after he directly participates in an Olympian beauty contest as a judge, Helen voluntarily comes with Paris away from Sparta out of sincere love for him.  No theological background is shown here.  Nevertheless, Homer's polytheistic backdrop is still included in the form of verbal references to the Olympian deities, as the characters very clearly live in societies shaped by the figures of Greek mythology.

Production Values

Troy has no need for the CGI that even other somewhat comparable films or shows like Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones sometimes need to rely on in order to depict some of the more fantasy-oriented aspects.  The visual absence of the Olympian deities keeps the focus on practical effects and performances instead of the more explicitly theological parts of The Iliad, although various characters do reference pseudo-deities like Athena, Apollo, and Ares, aa aforementioned.  One of the onscreen events that most directly alludes to Greek mythology is an arrow to the heel of Achilles, something easily shown without elaborate CGI.  Achilles himself is portrayed as a contemplative, nuanced character by Brad Pitt in a performance matched by the emotional vulnerability of Diane Kruger's Helen and the quieter resolve of Eric Bana's Hector.  Sean Bean's role as Odysseus and Rose Byrne's role as Briseis are sometimes less prominent than that of Achilles, but their characters and performances are still vital parts of the film--and, since Odysseus goes on to make a prolonged voyage home after the Trojan War, Troy is one of the only movies where Sean Bean does not die!

Story

Some spoilers are below.

Paris, prince of Troy, brings the Greek Helen with him away from Sparta when she confesses her former aimlessness as the wife of a Greek king after the two have started an affair.  When it becomes clear that she is missing, Greek forces mobilize to attack Troy--not merely for Helen, but for the personal power of certain key figures involved.  The Greeks boast the presence of Achilles, a demigod whose combat ability surpasses that of most soldiers thanks to his lineage, yet the Trojans stand behind a massive wall that has never been breached.  The tension between the two forces sparks internal conflict within characters on both sides as they reevaluate their own standing to others and the values they have served.

Intellectual Content

The Iliad and The Odyssey were never the philosophically sound works of entertainment (for that is what they are) that some treat them as, nor are they particularly deep in an intellectual sense altogether.  As a rationalist who was surrounded by gratuitously high regard for these two works (and others) in college several years ago, I enjoy mocking the fallacious love of tradition and history that pseudo-thinkers appeal to.  Not only do they touch upon little that is truly foundational or philosophically sound except by happenstance in the first place, but there are far more culturally relevant books and works of other, more sophisticated entertainment mediums that people can discuss if they truly cannot engage in philosophy without a book to push them along.  The Iliad, what seems to be the primary source material for Troy, still does manage to brush up against some important issues despite its general philosophical incompetency or irrelevance.

Some of those issues surface in Troy, perhaps in a more obvious way because of the nature of film.  For example, contrary to Greek culture's predominant ideas at the time, Hector says that nothing about warfare is full of glory, even as other characters blatantly assume that being remembered by future generations for combat achievements is objectively meaningful.  For the sake of being remembered, warriors revel in slaughter, having no concern for the epistemological flaws of their belief.  The standard cut of Troy actually forgoes the more graphic, stylized violence of films like 300 and shows numerous characters, especially various men and women in the city of Troy itself, lament the brutalities of warfare.  Helen and Briseis particularly express regret for the needless deaths of the Trojan War, while Achilles goes so far as to wonder if he should continue living his life as it is.  Perhaps Troy's most significant themes involve this analysis of how wasteful and gratuitous many military conflicts truly are.

Conclusion

Carried by strong performances from the entire cast and writing that cuts to the heart of the stupidity and sincerity on all sides of the Trojan War as depicted in The Iliad, Troy is one of the greatest films about ancient Greece or Sparta to have been made to this day.  The spectacle of ancient warfare, the personal stakes of war, and the individual psychologies and worldviews of key characters are emphasized in ways that fit all three into a thematically, cinematically consistent whole.  The almost three hour runtime also gives each major aspect the chance to be developed in ways that the typical 90 minute length of many modern films cannot.  What so many other films accomplish to smaller degrees or by neglecting other aspects of the movie, Troy accomplishes very competently.

Content:

1.  Violence:  The battlefield brutality seen onscreen is enough to distance Troy from contemporary PG-13 movies, but it is never enough to come near the level of violence in something like Game of Thrones.  Limbs and heads are rarely severed even though bodies are directly shown as they are cut with swords.

 2.  Nudity:  Achilles and two women are seen laying naked in their tent in his introduction scene, but not in a way that exposes their genitals to the camera.  Shortly after, Paris and Helen are shown naked, though Helen's buttocks are seen and not the genitalia of either person.