More Musings on Troy

More Musings on Troy

First off - spoiler alert!

So there are a few other items I wanted to discuss from Wolfgang Peterson's Troy from 2004. As I wrote my review earlier, the movie was a disappointment overall. When it worked, it was quite good. Unfortunately, there were just as many moments that did not work, and many of them are major problems.

There have been many criticisms leveled against Troy, some deserved and some not. I would like to defend the movie against some of these unfair criticisms.

1) The Gods are the most important part of The Iliad. Where the heck are the Gods in this movie?

The first misconception is that Troy is even an adaptation of Homer's The Iliad. It isn't. You could never make a movie of The Iliad because it only tells a tiny fraction of the Trojan War, a period of just a few weeks during the vast 10-year long conflict. The war doesn't begin in the Iliad. Troy doesn't fall in the Iliad. There is no Trojan Horse in the Iliad. Achilles is not famously killed with the arrow in the heel in the Iliad. The Iliad is ONLY the story of the events that directly lead to the epic Hector vs. Achilles duel. That's it. So let me clear that up right away.

People argue that without the gods, the whole story of the Trojan War is meaningless. To which I have to ask - why? The gods are important to the myth of the Trojan War, but that is not the story that Troy is trying to tell. Troy is trying to tell a plausible story that over thousands of years could have become the myth. I do agree that the involvement of the gods is important to the myth itself and does provide some wonderful thought-provoking themes about the nature of free will and what it means to be a human being. All very interesting material, but hardly necessary. What is essential to this tale is love - Achilles and Patrocles, Hector and Andromache, and especially that of Helen and Paris, who choose love over politics and bring about the destruction of a civilization because of it. Pride is also an essential theme. Hubris, the blind and haughty pride that has brought down many a hero and villain is on full display in both the myth and the movie. It is Agamemnon's hubris that insults and isolates Achilles so he refuses to fight, it is Troy's hubris that they can never lose a battle that leads to their downfall. That is much more important to the core story.

So why are the gods needed? Someday someone will adapt the myth into a film, and realize its impossible because the scenes in Olympus don't work in a film medium. It would be an hour of debating free will. Interesting to read. Boring to watch. I'd rather watch the war itself, thank you very much.

2) The acting stinks!

Overall, I have to disagree again. Critics singled out Eric Bana, Peter O'Toole, and Sean Bean as giving good performances, but every one else was a target. There are some weaker performances in the movie, I will admit that (for example, Saffron Burrows, whose acting in this movie consists of various combinations of weeping and shaking). But I want to defend the rest of the cast. Brendan Gleeson and Brian Cox are overacting as villainous brothers Menelaus and Agamemnon, but who cares? These are larger than life characters and they need to be played large. Personally, I enjoyed watching the two of them trying to chew apart every scene they were in. Orlando Bloom caught a lot of heat for a moony, whiny and annoying performance, but wait a minute - is that fair? Paris is moony, whiny and annoying. The fact that you hate Paris in this movie just means Orlando Bloom was doing his job effectively. And how about Brad Pitt as Achilles? Critics called his performance the epitome of Hollywood pretty boy miscasting. But I actually think that is what you need in this role. Achilles doesn't need to be a good actor; he needs old school Hollywood charisma. I don't care if he's one dimensional. I just want him to be charismatic chiseled weapon of destruction. Brad Pitt brings that to the movie. If his dialogue delivery is a little flat in a few scenes, he looks and moves every inch like Achilles. And in every scene with Brad Pitt, your eyes are naturally drawn to him. That is what you need in Achilles. He is the greatest warrior in all of literature.

I've been hearing these two criticisms unfairly leveled against Troy for years, so I just wanted to speak up in the film's defense. But I don't want to defend the film too much as it has some very big problems. Like below:

1) There is only so much you should change the legend!

If you are adapting an old tale, re-envisioning or updating it, there are certain things that can and cannot be changed. If you want to kill certain characters who are supposed to live, or visa versa, that's okay. I'm not a stickler for the details. But Troy goes too far. The city of Troy falls. Paris dies. Helen goes back to Greece. That's the whole point. The story of Paris and Helen cannot end well  They are responsible for the destruction of their city and the deaths of thousands of their people. They simply can not live happily ever after. So when Paris and Helen escape to the mountains, are we supposed to be happy for them while the city is burned and pillaged? What the hell?

The confusing thing is that they even set up Paris' death nicely. Before running into the city to save his cousin, Paris hands a young boy named Aeneas the Sword of Troy, saying so long as a Trojan holds this sword, her people will have a future. Since in the legend, Aeneas went on to lead the Trojan survivors to Italy and that his descendants founded Rome, I thought this was a cool little bit. But when Paris survives and escapes with everyone else, I had to wonder what was the point of the whole Aeneas scene? Now its just random and pointless.

2) Helen

She is partially responsible for starting the war, after all. But after the first half of the film, where all she does is mope, she largely vanishes. Nobody liked Helen in this movie, and a lot of people blamed Diane Kruger's acting. I think she is just badly written and not given anything to do. Playing the most beautiful woman in history is an impossible task in of itself. But add that to filmmakers who don't really know what to do with you after the opening act...poor Kruger was being set up as a target from the very beginning! What a wasted opportunity to play up the guilt, the horror that this conflict is her fault. They could and should have done something with that. They only hint at it once, in a beautifully done moment before Hector goes off to fight Achilles. Helen waits for him by the gate, weeping, because she knows that the best man in the city was about to be killed protecting her. It's a good moment, and the movie needed more of that.

3) Death of Patroclus

This is such a stupid moment! When Hector kills Patroclus, both armies stop fighting (as if all 10,000 men could have known this duel was happening) and get all depressed because the young man was killed. "That's enough killing for one day" and they all go home. What?? First of all, Patroclus isn't that young and was certainly not any younger than half the other people getting slaughtered in the movie. We didn't stop fighting for any of those guys. I think the writers just didn't know how to end the scene. They wrote themselves into a corner and had to think of a way to end the fight before the Trojans won the battle. Maybe I'm nitpicking, but this scene is STUPID!

4) Patroclus and Achilles

Speaking of Patroclus, I think they missed a big opportunity. Patroclus was Achilles' friend, not his cousin. There is even some subtext that he is Achilles' lover. I think the studios got afraid because they didn't want their sexy leading man to be gay. What safer way to do that than turn his best friend/lover into his cousin? But how much more interesting would the scenes in Achilles' camp have been if they had kept that part of the story intact? What an interesting love triangle. Achilles falls in love with the Trojan priestess, Briseis, and rejects the war and prepares to return home. In doing this, he is not just rejecting his old life as a warrior but is rejecting the loved one who represents that life: Patroclus. In the movie, Patroclus is just some whiny kid who is bummed out because he never gets to fight. Wouldn't it be better if he sees Briseis as what she is, as a rival and a threat? Suddenly, Patroclus being killed by Hector takes on more meaning. It ignites Achilles, who unleashes his vengeance on the battlefield. Such fury makes more sense if it is the love of your life who has just been killed. I'm not saying that the filmmakers needed to go Brokeback Mountain in ancient Greece. If the studios were worried, they could have kept this subtle. But I think this decision to make Patroclus a cousin just smacks of marketing fears. Pity. I think they missed an opportunity for good drama!

Okay, my ramblings are over. Thanks for indulging! New review next time - the terrific Chinese film, Ip Man!