From a Persian point of view!

Rating: Null/10 (17 December 2004)

I agree with most of you guys on being bored by the movie, confused of Alexander's motives of uniting Euroup and Asia!, cast (though I liked Jolies play), lack of the bound between the narration of Hopkin with the rest of the movie (it didn't fit!), and so on. In addition to those comments, I have to say that the movie was an insult to my nationality and my homeland, Iran. I'm not trying to say that Persians were perfect, nobody was,is, and will be! But the movie gave the viewers the impression that Persians were barbarian, though Alexander himself, both in the movie and in the history, was astonished and impressed by the Persians and their civilization. I do not know why in the narrations of Hopkin, he calls Persians as being barbarian over and over again, it is not just these narrations! Roxana's political position in the movie is reduced to a nobody, though she was the princess and the daughter of Persia's king. I think that there was an ignorance towards the Persians. Otherwise,how come is it that in the violent scenes of the fighting between the Persians and the Greeks, there is not even a scene of a Greek being killed by a Persian?(It's probably true that the Persians were fighting just because their king wanted them to. But it's also true that the Persians believed that the king was someone chosen by God to rule over them, and so, most of them were ready to do anything for their king. So, it wasn't the case that they didn't fight bravely against the Greeks, and probably many Greeks were killed in that bloody war.)Though this is not the case with the fight between the Indians and the Greeks.Remember, the Persians remained loyal to Alexander till the end, on the contrary to the Indians. And why Stone and the writer didn't pay enough attention to the Persians, how they looked like, and the way they talked? Some details that have to be taken in consideration in any historical movie! Rosario who plays the character of Roxana, doesn't look like a Persian! Persians were not, and are not so dark-skinned! And the language that is spoken among the Persian armies in the beginning of the battle, sounds rather Arabic than Persian.(A mistake that many people make that we speak Arabic! However,when you're going to make a historical movie, you have to be more accurate and pay more attention to the details than common people. Many people collect their information about other countries and their nations from movies and other advertising media of the western world, and not through the history books or unbiased media.) It wasn't any director, it was Oliver Stone, who gave a false image of the Persians to the world, who are hardly familiar with The Persians! Very few know that while Alexander was obsessed with his love for his own sex, and many were killed brutally by the Greek soldiers, and many places were burned to ashes, and the Greeks were confused which god to pray,..., the Persians worshipers only one God, and Cyrus the Great, King of Persia was the first person in the history of mankind to value freedom and equality of people and talked about human rights( long before the uprising of Alexander). As I mentioned earlier, the Persians were not perfect, and there were some cruel rulers among them who killed many, but they were not barbarians for sure. Actually, Persia is one of the oldest countries with one of the oldest civilizations on the earth!