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A TALE OF TWO CITIES
Achilles (Brad Pitt,above) finds himself fighting for the King of Athens when Paris, Prince of Troy (Orlando Bloom, below), abducts Helen (Diane Kruger, below).
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But, as Petersen also points out, at the heart of the film, there are two much less brutal - if equally powerful - themes: the tragic love affair between Paris and Helen; and the dilemma faced by Achilles.
“I don’t think that any writer in the last 3,000 years has more graphically and accurately described the horrors of war than Homer,” says Petersen. “But, in his epic work, the human drama is overshadowed by the brutality. A contemporary audience needs to come into the story through the lives and passions of the real people caught up in this terrifying experience.”
Which brings us to Helen of Troy. The love affair between her and Paris ranks alongside Romeo and Juliet - and, perhaps, Samson and Delilah - as one of the great, all-consuming and ultimately tragic passions to be found in myth or literature. When they meet, Helen is already married to Menelaus, King of Sparta (Brendan Gleeson). The young prince of Troy finds himself in her bedroom while, elsewhere in the house, negotiations are underway to seal a lasting peace between the kingdoms of Greece, Sparta and Troy.
But when Paris carries a (largely willing) Helen back to Troy with him, the implications are cosmic: not only is this a mortal insult to Menelaus but to his brother, Agamemnon (Brian Cox), too. And, when the massed armies of Greece and Sparta arrive at the walls of Troy to get Helen back, Priam, King of Troy (Peter O’Toole), has to choose between handing the couple over to the Greeks, knowing this will result in the death of his son; or resisting, knowing that this will probably result in the destruction of his kingdom. So, when Paris will not give up Helen and Priam will not give up his son, the bloodiest confrontation of the ancient world becomes inevitable.
“For me,” says Orlando Bloom, “Paris is not like any character I’ve played. He’s the second son to Priam, and he’s lived a very sheltered life. He hasn’t had to think about the responsibilities of becoming a warrior or a king. Although he’s in a hugely political, dangerous world, his own world is very simple, until he basically creates a war because of his lust and his love for one woman. Two countries collide, which leads him to lose everything he knows. And he does all of this for love.”
“Helen can come across as quite vain and self absorbed in The Iliad, so her actions for her own selfish reasons can be hard to forgive,” says Diane Kruger, the little-known German actress cast in the part of the world’s most beautiful woman. “The Troy script makes Helen more human, showing how lonely she must have been, living in a golden cage and forced into a marriage with a man twice her age. Her unhappiness is allowed to come through.
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