Top Five Ancient Greece Films

In my info page on this site, I stated I would post about Ancient Greek subjects, so this will be the first in what will hopefully be a series of posts about Ancient Greece. This week, I want to talk about films set in Greece and I thought the best way to do it would be to have a countdown, so here we go. The top five Ancient Greece Films are:

Alexander

When most people think about Ancient Greece, they think about Alexander the Great. Alexander the Great was a young man born in Macedon who would go on to create a massive empire in a single generation ranging from the Balkans to the Indus River. The film Alexander showcases Alexander’s military conquests, but also does a great job at showing the hidden life of one of history’s greatest conquerors. The film also depicts Alexander’s upbringing, his crazy mom, and his love affairs with both women and men- something not uncommon in the times of Ancient Greece.

300

In the Fifth Century BC, a massive Persian army led by Emperor Xerxes invaded the Balkans with the intention to take control of the city-states established there. In one of the opening battles of the campaign, three hundred Spartan soldiers with the help of somewhere between one thousand to three thousand soldiers from allied Greek city-states, held the Persian Army for three days while the city-states to the south could prepare for the coming war. 300 depicts the Battle of Thermopylae the way only Greek Myths could. Based on a graphic novel of the same name, 300 depicts the Spartan soldiers as the most over-the-top soldiers in history fighting an army of infinite number led by an emperor who thinks himself a god. The whole premise of the film is similar to how Ancient Greek stories of the Trojan War would have been told.

Hercules

In 1997, Disney released a film loosely based on the stories of Hercules. Heracles (as the Greeks called him) was a Greek hero who attempted to right his wrongs of killing his wife and son by completing twelve impossible tasks given to him by his divine father Zeus. Disney’s portrayal lacks the dark purpose of Hercules’ hero quest, but does provide a Greek-style chorus (where the whole concept of a chorus derives), an incredible cast (Danny DeVito singing?!) and a powerful villain- Hades- god of the dead.

Troy

The Trojan War was the last great story of Ancient Greek Mythology- a mythology itself which is divided by heroes of the Trojan War and heroes of before the Trojan War. In the final years of the Mycenaean Greeks; Athena, Hera, and Aphrodite visit Prince Paris of Troy during a wedding in Greece. Each goddess offers Paris a gift related to their field (political power, military fame, or any woman’s affection). Paris takes Aphrodite’s offer and Queen Helen of Sparta (sister-in-law of King Agamemnon of all Greece) falls for the prince. The two run away to Troy and a war begins to get Helen back. Troy portrays the Trojan War as a fight between two factions- neither of which have just cause, but both of which contain young men caught in an unjust war. In the end, the leading heroes of the two armies (Hector of Troy and Achilles of Greece) fight in a vengeance fuelled dual to the death. The film continues after the fight to depict the use of the Trojan Horse, the burning of Troy, and the flight of Aeneas (mythic founder of Rome).

O Brother Where Art Thou

The most well-known story of Ancient Greece is that of a veteran trying to reach home to see his wife and son before he dies. Odysseus is caught in a storm with his three ships after the Trojan War, and goes on a ten-year journey across the Mediterranean trying to reach his family. O Brother Where Art Thou tells the tale of Odysseus, but set in the Southern US during the Great Depression- a period not too unlike Odysseus’s time when after a great war, all of Greece was falling into a dark age. In the film, George Clooney’s character works with his two friends as they escape a chain-gang, play music, and try to find a wedding ring so Clooney’s character can resume his life as a free and married man.