Helen of Troy

DVD borrowed from my local public library, DTS sound, widescreen, each half on each of two disks, I watched it on consecutive nights. I was most drawn to it for Sienna Guillory, young British actress and daughter of a famous musician from Cuba, whom I had seen in the modern remake of 'The Time Machine.' She plays Helen of Sparta, who becomes Helen of Troy, and is the default object of passion which sparks the war and eventual fall of Troy, via the Trojan Horse. Agamemnon and Achilles are depicted as heartless killers with no redeeming qualities. I don't know what Homer had in mind, but this seems to be decidedly different from most earlier treatments of these mythical characters. The video transfer to DVD is very high quality, but the sharpness and realistic colors are not as effective as some period pieces (e.g. Gladiator) which use a mildly tinted image and selective focus to better depict the olden times. Still, for the type of movie it is, a worthwhile depiction of some important Greek mythology.

The Helen of Troy miniseries on USA today failed apparently because the writer lacked the nerve to tell the classic story, and instead made up his own. Instead of using Homer's Illiad as a starting point, the TVsters seemed to turn to the 1956 film as the primary source--turning the seduction/kidnap of Helen into a big ol' love story.

So many key elements were missing: the interventions of the gods, the quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon, the killing of Patroclus in Achilles armor, Achilles subsequent killing of Hector, etc. This was the storyline of what we know of the myth of the Trojan War.

And major characters are triviliazed or disappeared: Hector's glory on TV is as a second banana to Paris; mighty Ajax gets a mention, little more; Diomedes, Nestor, Idonmoneus are absent. On the Trojan side, Aeneas, Sarpedon, Glaucus, Deiphobus and others are equally invisible.

Agamemnon is seen, not as a hero with the fatal flaw of hubris but a Hitlerian monster. Menaleas, a strong warrior in the Illiad, seems like he attended all the sensitivity training classes avaiable to the Achians, (the Greeks were referred to as "the Ageans" in the series), but wasn't much of a fighter.

But my biggest beef is with the character of Paris (Helen seemed commonplace, but acceptable). Paris was not much of a hero in the Illiad; actually, he was a bit of a feckless bounder. Helen's feelings toward him were decidedly mixed, with lust, pity, and contempt thrown together. Hector upbraided Paris on several occasions for his cowardice and sloth, but then, Paris occasionally entered the fray as an experienced soldier as well.

I sense the writers chickened out of grappling with a different kind of plot, and thereby missed an opportunity. The difficult interplay among the Greek heroes, the complicated moral choices on both sides, the tragic savagery of war, while existing to small degrees in the series, took back seat to a more or less conventional love story.

Too bad. Production values were fair, and some of the elements were there to make something better.

Unlike the epic TROY, which spent much time and money recreating the spectacle of the Trojan War with CGI, the emphasis here is on the political ambitions and prophecies leading up to the start of the siege of Troy. Rufus Sewell as Agamemnon gives a performance (as the man who would conquer Troy) which eerily evokes Oliver Reed at his sinister best, as he makes it clear that the romance of Helen and Paris was merely a convenient excuse for the events that followed, and that the war came out of his own thirst for conquest. Sienna Guillory is attractive as Helen, but her role is rapidly reduced to that of a bystander in the great events that swirled around her. And the film makes clear its logic about this: how could a woman be responsible for a war in a time when even princesses were chattels of the royal houses to be auctioned off in marriage for political gain? As it deals more intimately with its characters and looks more closely at social power structures and gender roles of the period, this film is much more interesting as a human drama than the rather empty spectacle TROY.

I disagree with the reviewer who thinks Paris is prettier than Helen. Sienna Guillory is gorgeous! As in the Iliad Paris & Helen are a matched pair. I also disagree with the reviewer who panned the movie because it was not faithful to the Iliad. No movie, not even a TV miniseries, can be expected to be totally faithful to any book. A movie is always a selection. The question should not be what was omitted, or whether it compressed or altered the text for cinematic purposes. Of course it did! The question is whether or not it captured the spirit of the original, or whether it did violence to that spirit, as too many movies do. In my view this movie captured the spirit of the Iliad surprisingly well. Perhaps the Greek heroes, especially Agamemnon, do not come off as heroically as the modern viewer has come to expect. But then our idea of heroism, (confused as it too often is with idealism), is not Homer's; and, then again, this movies portrayal of the Greeks as devious aggressors plotting the conquest of Troy is both historically accurate and does nothing to distort Homer's portrait of them. He certainly would have agreed. I did feel that the movie became somewhat rushed at the end. Unfortunately, this seems to be a common problem with many movies based on classic works of literature. The director seems to lavish most of his energy and resources on the beginning and middle of the story. Then, as time and money begin to run out, the ending becomes hurried, episodes are combined, the story becomes perilously compressed. But even here, the movie does not really leave the viewer disappointed. The scene in which the Trojan Horse suddenly appears without explanation outside the walls of Troy is particularly effective, because it appears to the viewer just as it must have appeared to the Trojans. Even though one may wish for more, nothing in the movie's ending distorts Homer's tale of the fall of Ilium.

In connection with mythology, our class was given the opportunity to view the film, Helen of Troy, last July 26 to August 2, 2005. Helen of Troy, released during the year 2003, is a movie produced by Ted Kurdyla and directed by John Kent Harrison. It was based on Homer's "Iliad" and its primary focus is "The Trojan War", which is one of the greatest stories in Ancient Literature. The film involves the story of Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world, being married to Menelaus in a land called Sparta. When Prince Paris comes to seek peace with Sparta, Helen falls madly in love with him and follows him to Troy. Enraged, Menelaus calls upon the Greek army to fulfill the oath they once swore: to defy anyone who stole Helen. From thus, the battle for Helen's love was started, putting the lives of many great warriors at stake. Although, the story presented a different plot from the text, people who haven't read it would be able to grasp the main idea from the movie. I was disappointed by the way the writers portrayed the character of Achilles, especially his line: "I stand before High King Agamemnon". Achilles was not under anyone, not even the highest of Kings; he cared for his own skin and fought for his own glory. Making him faithful to Agamemnon and responsible for no one else was a mistake because it means to show there were no other people involved who concerned Achilles. I also did not like the reason the writers made for Achilles killing Hector. According to the text, Achilles kills Hector to avenge his best friend's death – not to save Agamemnon. Another significant difference was Helen begging for the body of Hector from Agamemnon, which was wrong; I believe it's important that Priam, Hector's father, was the one who asked for his son's body from Achilles because it shows that despite all the people Achilles has killed, there was still compassion left in the heart of even the most ruthless warrior. What worked particularly well for the film was the focus on Helen's royal family; it explained a lot about Helen's background, thus giving the audience more information than in the text.

I give this movie, a final rating of 4. The setting, effects and the cinematography was great. It made me feel as if it's the exact place where the battle happened. Helen of Troy is a movie that immediately captures its audience, engraving into their hearts the message it wishes to impart, which is: there will always be people who are ready to fight, whether it be for love of country, love of glory, or simply loving someone.