Beware the distinction between movie and truth!!!

Rating: 6/10 (10 April 2007)

7/10
SHOULD I, like my good friend and an astonishing number of reviewers here at IMDb, deride this movie on the grounds of what it lacks?
Could I have made it a better movie? Most certainly not.
SO, my comments ought to be centered around what is actually CAN do:
It was a FIREWORKS display of well-choreographed cartoon reality. Cartoon reality is, as we know, often at liberty to twist facts to suit the story. Why this is so with cartoons, and not to the same degree in singularly font-based storytelling, I do not know. But I accept it as a pretext.
I watch movies with my feelings. If a movie manages to convince me of its story - the logical framework being whole, and by this I don't mean not having plot holes, but the story in its entirety - it bypasses my head. This mechanism is not unknown to creators in any line of work. "I buy it". Which is the sole purpose of any product. "I buy into it" - I accept the reality of it.
I am not well educated, and know next to nothing of the ancient history. Am also well aware of the illusion that those who know not their history are deemed to repeat it ( - "illusion", because I see this upholding of History as not keeping anyone from aggression and greed. On the contrary it takes people away from themselves and the moment... Excuse the digression...) And I am aware that what takes place on the screen is a rendition of reality. Of one man (or a small collective of men) 's perception of leftovers from an era long gone, albeit analyzed over and over by academics, but still only one man's version or vision.
That I feel the impact of the movie is due to the fact that this man manages to portray a wholeness. Do I believe it to be true? I do not. It is a version. Am I fulfilled? On some levels, yes - but not like with a Tarkovsky or Coppola (to draw from very different movie-making expressions). "300" works. It completes its mission to persuade me to come closer and believe in the story - not as truth, but as movie. BEWARE THE DISTINCTION.
I couldn't care less if this was far from or close to the truth. It takes place in an altogether different universe from the one my forefathers lived in, and had their fun on the battle fields and in the subjugation of the weaker, because they could.
300 is a vehicle for messages about an impression of a or the human condition. Freedom, honour, glory - these definitions need dusting off from time to time in order for us to see something to believe in, which is not controlled by religion or money. What we would term "inner value". Okay, so "300" defines it as well worth dying for, in order to defend a way of life. Funnily this mechanism is what everyone uses in order to define the term "human".
The mechanism. Not the content. Very big distinction. We all put something inside of our definition of human, if we *need* to define it, rather than just be our own best example.
300 is not an altogether bad way of stating an opinion about what is needed.
Okay - bright people can work on pretexts. They can assume a position and argue from that POW. Without being there. And as such be opportunists, who will give the receiving end what the receiving end believes it needs at the moment - without themselves acknowledging anything but the fact that "these mechanisms work".
THIS is what I should look for, if in a criticism of this movie I should venture beyond my instinctive reaction. "Do they themselves believe in their words?" What say my instinct?
6/10