마지막 군단 The Last Legion

장군이었다가 노예가 되어 검투사로 사는 '글레디에이터'의 몰입과 재미에 비할 수는 없어도
'반지의 제왕'이 주는 신비감과 웅장함을 따라잡지는 못해도, 
고트족의 침입에 속수무책으로 당하는 서로마제국의 어린 마지막 시저와 제9군단에 관한 영화는 같은 스펙타클이면서도 어떻게 하면 이쁜 배경 화면 속에서 '밋밋하게' 보여줄 수 있을까를 무척 고민한 듯하다.
  
액션도 판타지도 아닌 어정쩡한 캐릭터에의 이입은 곤란하기만 하고,
많은 엑스트라를 동원했으면 제대로 된 싸움이라도 한 판 벌이든지...
그저, 이쁘디 이쁜 Aishwarya Rai의 고혹적 자태와 날렵한 칼쌈에 내맡길 뿐이고
누가 주인공인지, 무엇에 초점을 맞춘 것인지 줄곧 아리까리하다.
그래서 서로마제국은 붕괴되었나부다~~~

The Last Legion is a 2007 film directed by Doug Lefler. Produced by Dino De Laurentiis and others, it is based on a 2003 Italian novel of the same name written by Valerio Massimo Manfredi. 
Doug Lefler가 감독하고 Dino De Laurentiis 등이 연출을 맡은 2007년 영화이며 Valerio Massimo Manfredi가 2003년에 쓴 동명의 이태리 소설에 바탕하고 있다.
It stars Colin Firth along with Sir Ben Kingsley and Aishwarya Rai, and premiered in Abu Dhabi on April 6, 2007.
Colin Firth가 Ben Kingsley , Aishwarya Rai와 함께 출연하고 2007년 4월6일 아부 다비에서 최초 개봉되었다.

The film is loosely inspired by the events of 5th century European history, notably the collapse of the Western Roman Empire under its last Emperor, Romulus Augustus. 영화는 5세기 유럽역사, 그 중에서도 특히 마지막 시저인 로뮬러스 아우구스투스 지배하의 서로마제국의 붕괴에서 어렴풋이 영감을 받는다.
This is coupled with other facts and legends from the history of Britain and fantastic elements from the legend of King Arthur to provide a basis for the Arthurian legend.
이것은 다른 사실들과 브리튼의 역사와 아더왕 전설에 토대를 제공한 환상적 요소와 연결되었다.

Plot

The film is narrated by Ambrosinus, native to Britain, who knows of a legend concerning the sword of Julius Caesar, which was hidden away from evil men. 영화는 사악한 무리들로부터 멀리 숨겨진 줄리어스 시저의 검에 관한 전설을 알고 있는 브리튼 태생의 암브로시너스의 나레이션으로 진행된다.
It begins shortly before the coronation of Romulus as Emperor in 460. 460년, 로뮬러스의 시저 대관식 직전으로부터 시작한다.

Having traveled through much of the known world in search of Caesar's sword, Ambrosinus has then become Romulus's tutor. 시저의 검을 찾기 위해 알려진 세계 곳곳을 여행하고 다닌 암브로시너스는 당시 로뮬러스의 스승이 되어 있었다.
A Druid and part of a secret brotherhood protecting the sword, he at times gives the impression he is a magician, but his "magic" is just trickery. 드루이드 성직자로서 또한 검을 수호하는 비밀조직의 한 부분으로서 그는 때때로 마법사인 듯한 느낌을 풍기지만 그의 마술은 단지 속임수일 뿐이다.
Romulus's father Orestes rules Rome but is not Emperor himself.
로뮬러스의 부친인 오레스테스는 로마를 통치하지만 자신이 시저인 것은 아니다.

On the day before the coronation, Odoacer, commander of the barbarian Goths allied with Rome, demands a third of Italy from Orestes, but is rebuffed. 로마와 동맹을 맺은 이교도인 고트족의 수장 오도아커는 대관식 전날, 이태리의 3분의1을 달라고 오레스테스에게 요구하지만 거절당한다.
The same day, Romulus meets the general of the Nova Invicta Legion, Aurelianus Caius Antonius, called "Aurelius".
같은 날, 로뮬러스는 '아우렐리우스'로 불리는 노바 인빅타 군단의 장군인 아우렐리아누스 카이우스 안토니우스를 만난다.

The night after Romulus is crowned, Rome is attacked by the Goths. Most of Aurelius's men, pledged to protect the emperor, are killed, though Aurelius is only stunned and left for dead. 로뮬러스의 대관식 날, 로마는 고트족의 공격을 받고 시저를 보호하기로 맹세했던 대부분의 아우렐리우스의 부하들은 죽지만 아우렐리우스는 기절했다가 시체처럼 남겨진다.
Orestes and his wife are killed by Odoacer's lieutenant Wulfila, who captures Romulus.
오레스테스와 그의 아내는 오오아커의 심복인 울필라에 의해 죽임을 당하고 로뮬러스는 생포된다.

Next day, Odoacer, now ruler of the Western Empire, plans to have Romulus killed.
다음날, 서로마제국의 통치자가 된 오오아커는 로뮬러스를 죽이려고 한다.
However, Ambrosinus convinces Odoacer to spare the boy.
반면, 암브로시너스는 오도아커에게 소년을 살려두라고 설득한다.
Instead, Romulus is exiled to Capri along with Ambrosinus, guarded by Wulfila and his men.
대신에 로뮬러스는 암브로시너스와 함께 울필라와 그 부하들의 감시하에 카프리섬으로 유배된다.
His prison is a villa constructed more than four centuries earlier by the emperor Tiberius.
그 감옥은 티베리우스 황제에 의해 4백년전에 건설된 별장이었다.

With Ambrosinus's help, Romulus discovers a hidden chamber within the villa.
암브로시너스의 도움으로 로뮬러스는 별장 내의 비밀 방을 발견한다.
He comes across a statue of Caesar holding the fabled sword, forged by a Chalybian smith after his military campaigns in Britain. 브리튼에서의 군사작전 후 주조된 전설적인 검을 쥐고 있는 시저상을 뜻밖에 만난다.

Writing near the statue's feet proclaims the sword was made for "he who is destined to rule".
시저상의 발 쪽에 쓰여져 있던 글귀에서는 그 검은 "통치할 운명을 지닌 자"를 위해 만들어진 것이라 공표하고 있었다
This is interpreted as a prophecy by various characters, and Romulus keeps the weapon.
이 내용은 여러명에 의해 예언으로 해석되었고 로뮬러스가 그 검을 지니게 된다.

The two are rescued from Capri by the loyal Aurelius and three surviving legionaries, accompanied by a female agent of the Eastern Roman Empire - a Keralite warrior named Mira (trained in the martial art of Kalarippayattu).
They take Romulus to a seaport where the Eastern Roman Empire's emissary (whom Mira works for) and the senator Nestor have promised safe passage to Constantinople.
However, they barely escape after they learn the Senate and the Eastern Empire have betrayed them and sided with Odoacer.

Ambrosinus persuades Romulus to seek refuge in Britain, where the Ninth Legion (called the Dragon Legion) may remain loyal, being far from the events. They are followed by Wulfila and his men; the Goth covets Caesar's sword after learning the prophecy. Crossing the Alps and the English Channel, the party travels to Hadrian's Wall and initially find no evidence of the legion until a farmer approaches and reveals he was its commander. With the collapse of Roman support of Britain, the legion had decided to disband and settle as farmers. Most of the men in the legion had married and had families. They also did not want to antagonize the powerful warlord Vortgyn. During their stay in the small Celtic village, Romulus meets and befriends a young girl named Igraine. Aurelius and Mira practice swordfighting and become close to each other. Ambrosinus told Romulus of a scar on his chest, similar to the design on the sword hilt, which he received from Vortgyn after he refused to tell him where the sword of Caesar was.

Vortgyn also desires the sword of Caesar as he aspires to rule the whole of Britain. It is revealed that Vortgyn and Ambrosinus are old enemies. After meeting with the Goths, Vortgyn decides to either capture or kill Romulus as a gesture to Odoacer. After confronting Igraine outside of the village, he convinces her to tell everyone in the village to surrender Romulus and has several of his men kill her mother and brothers. When a tearful Igraine tells the villagers of what had happened, Aurelius confessed that Romulus was the emperor of Rome. Igraine's father demanded revenge on his wife's and sons' deaths, and Aurelius and his men decide to lead an army to Hadrian's Wall to face Vortgyn's armies in one final battle.

Before leaving the village, Romulus receives from Igraine a suit of Roman armor which had belonged to one of her brothers. Aurelius, wielding Caesar's sword, leads his men and a small number of Celtic warriors against Vortgyn's forces at Hadrian's Wall. Aurelius, his men, and the archers pelted the infantry with arrows, while Mira, Romulus, and several Roman and Celtic soldiers struggled to hold the enemy at the gate. Despite their casualties, Vortgyn's soldiers began to slowly overwhelm the small force on the wall. The battle appears hopeless until the rest of the Ninth Legion, having taken up their old Roman arms and uniforms, appear and turn the tide. The two warring sides cease their hostilities when Ambrosinus confronts and burns Vortgyn alive at a tree-sanctuary of his secret brotherhood near the battlefield. Romulus kills Wulfila with Caesar's sword, avenging his parents. He tells Aurelius that he fought like a dragon, whereupon Aurelius replies that Romulus fought like the son of a dragon.

Repulsed by the deaths in the battle, Romulus heaves away his sword which remarkably pierces a large rock and becomes lodged there. Many years later, Ambrosinus, now known by his Druid name, Merlin, takes a young boy to the battlefield to describe the now legendary events. Merlin, who has visibly aged little since the battle, says that Aurelius married Mira and the two raised Romulus as their own son. He became a wise ruler, took the girl Igraine as his wife, and adopted the name "Pendragon". The boy, Arthur, recognizes Romulus as his father and Igraine as his mother.

In a final scene, the sword of Julius Caesar is shown embedded in the stone, with moss growing on the blade, covering the original inscription, leaving only the Latin letters which, when read as a single word, read Escalibur.

Partial cast

• Colin Firth ... Aurelius
• Thomas Sangster ... Romulus Augustus/Pendragon
• Sir Ben Kingsley ... Ambrosinus/Merlin
• Aishwarya Rai ... Mira
• Peter Mullan ... Odoacer
• Kevin McKidd ... Wulfia
• John Hannah ... Nestor
• Owen Teale ... Vatrenus
• Rupert Friend ... Demetrius
• Nonso Anozie ... Batiatus
• Harry Van Gorkum ... Vortgyn
• Robert Pugh ... Kustennin
• James Cosmo ... Hrothgar
• Alexander Siddig ... Theodorus Andronikos
• Murray McArthur ... Tertius
  

Differences from the Novel

The film departs from the novel in several ways; so much so that its credits state it to be "based in part" on the original.

In the novel, Aurelius (called Aurelianus Ambrosius Ventidius) is a low-ranking officer rather than a general, and his original legion, the Nova Invicta, is destroyed much earlier.

The novel's band of heroes includes three surviving legionaries (Aurelius, Vatrenus and Batiatus), a Venetian warrior woman called Livia Prisca, and two Greek gladiators, Demetrius and Orosius. The film turns Livia into the Indian Mira, and Demetrius and Orosius into legionaries. While Demetrius remains a prominent supporting character, Orosius becomes an uncredited background extra.^[6]

The film alters the capital of the Western Empire from Ravenna to Rome.

The film depicts the coronation of Romulus (and subsequent fall of Rome) as having taken place in 460, while the novel correctly gives the year as 476. Romulus was Emperor for ten months, not a single day as in the film.

The "Last Legion" in the novel is a fictional Twelfth Legion (Legio XII Draco), not the Ninth. While the Ninth is called the "Dragon" Legion as in the novel, it was the "Hispanic" Legion (Legio IX Hispana) in real life. A Twelfth Legion did exist under different names, but not as Draco.

The prophecy concerning Romulus is worded differently in the novel: it speaks of a youth with a sword who will bring peace and prosperity to Britain, and the "eagle and the dragon" flying once more over the land (Manfredi makes these the dying words of the soldier-bishop Germanus, whom he also makes the founder of the Dragon Legion).

In the novel, Ambrosinus (full Roman name Meridius Ambrosinus, originally known as Myrdin Emries in Britain, which later becomes Merlin) is a Christian and yet also a Druid. This is left unclear in the film, where he mostly speaks in generic terms of "truth" and "faith"; one exception is when he tells Vortgyn (spelled Wortigern in the novel) to "burn in Hell".

The final battle is identified as the Battle of Badon Hill in the novel but not in the film.

Historical Notes

Orestes, who was partly of German blood, was historically the magister militum — the senior officer of the Roman army second to the emperor. He had indeed promised his German foederati a third of Italy to settle in but not to Odoacer personally. Orestes was himself an usurper, having used his power over the foederati to depose the legitimate emperor Julius Nepos and inaugurate his son Romulus Augustus.

Romulus's coronation and capture is depicted as taking place in Rome, whereas his historical reign and abdication took place in Ravenna.

There was civil strife in the Eastern Roman Empire at the time but the Emperor alluded to would probably have been Zeno (explicit in the novel). The Eastern Emperor eventually neutralised Odoacer when the latter became too popular with the people of Italy.

The Emperor Tiberius is referred to as "the last of Julius Caesar's line". Inconsistently, Romulus Augustus is also depicted as the last of Julius Caesar's family line and Tiberius as one of his ancestors. Tiberius was actually the second of the five Julio-Claudian emperors, succeeding to the role of emperor as the adopted son of Augustus, who had himself been adopted by Julius Caesar. Augustus had named several of his own relatives as heirs, but as they all died, he named a son of his second wife, Livia, by her first marriage. Thus, Tiberius was not the last of any line established by Julius Caesar (Augustus' maternal great-uncle by blood) as he had no blood relation to Caesar at all. His successors, Caligula and Claudius were blood relatives of Julius Caesar through a maternal blood line dating back to Augustus's older sister, Octavia. Nero, a direct descendant of Augustus, ruled roughly twenty years after the death of Tiberius and was the final emperor of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty, thus making him the last ruler descended from Julius Caesar's family - the Julii. In the film it is implied that Romulus' descent from Caesar's family is through his (unnamed) mother (which is presumably why Orestes cannot be Emperor himself). Historically, nothing is known about Romulus's mother, but the Julii had been extinct for more than 400 years before Romulus was born. He could only be claimed as "the last of Julius Caesar's line" if "line of office" was meant, as he was the last Western Emperor to bear the name "Caesar", which all Emperors subsequent to Nero adopted as part of their imperial title.

The film uses the premise of the missing Ninth Legion still existing somewhere in Britain at this time, a once popular idea among British Historians. The Ninth Legion disappears from Roman records from about 120 AD, by which time, it has been suggested, it was no longer serving in Britain. Rather, it has been thought that the Legion was destroyed in some unknown war near the Danube frontier or perhaps whilst serving on the Eastern front fighting the Parthians, during or before the reign of Marcus Aurelius. Recently, however, academic opinion has swung back to the 'destroyed in Britain' hypothesis, Dr Miles Russell of Bournemouth University demonstrating that the weight of historic evidence suggests that significant numbers of Roman troops were wiped out in the province during the early years of the emperor Hadrian^[7]. Even if, as now seems likely, the Ninth had gone missing in the province, it is highly unlikely to have reappeared then continued in existence as a military force for the three centuries between AD 117 and 460. At any rate by the late fifth century AD Britain had already long been abandoned by Rome, mobile units having departed for the continent in AD 407, more static frontier units devolving into little more than a local militia.

The uniforms and weapons of the Ninth Legion as depicted in the film (badly) reflect an earlier period of Roman history. By the time of the official fall of the Western Empire, Roman legionaries did not wear scarlet cloaks, nor did they carry the semi-circular shields of ancient times, and the short stabbing sword known as the gladius had been replaced.

Mira's weapon, the Katar or Katara (कटार), had not been invented at the time in which the action is set. Katars came into use more than 1000 years later.

A few of the castles and fortified cities in the film have round spires with pointed coned roofs, when in fact this style of buildings was not common until the late Middle Ages.

Connections to the Arthurian legend

The movie shows King Arthur as a descendant of the last Roman imperial line. In Le Morte d'Arthur Arthur claims descent from Constantine and is crowned Roman Emperor after defeating its (fictional) ruler, Lucius Tiberius.

Aurelius is based on Aurelius Ambrosius, brother of Arthur's father Uther Pendragon. Aurelius and Uther opposed Vortigern. Aurelius is a fictionalized version of the historical war leader Ambrosius Aurelianus, who led the Romano-British against the invading Saxons.

In Geoffrey of Monmouth's pseudohistorical work The History of the Kings of Britain (Historia Regum Britanniae), Merlin, originally a figure unconnected with Arthur, is called Merlin Ambrosius after Geoffrey merged legends of Aurelius Ambrosius into the character. Ambrosius becomes Ambrosinus in the film. In the novel, Merlin's original British name Myrdin Emries is directly taken from Welsh versions of the tales.

Vortgyn's death by fire in a burning tree shelter/shrine echoes the legendary Vortigern's death, as according to Geoffrey of Monmouth the latter died in his tower when it was set aflame.


Excalibur

One of the movie's taglines is "Before King Arthur, there was Excalibur". The last shots of the film establish the fictional sword of Caesar as the legendary blade (also the Sword in the Stone, originally a different weapon).

The word Excalibur comes from the Old French Escalibor which is itself a corruption of Caliburnus or Caliburn. The name Caliburn is often held to be Geoffrey of Monmouth's Latinized form of the original Welsh Caledfwlch, which combines the elements caled ("battle, hard"), and bwlch ("breach, gap, notch").^[8] Manfredi espouses an alternative theory wherein Caliburn derives from Latin chalybs "steel", which is in turn derived from Chalybes, the name of an Anatolian ironworking tribe.^[9]

The sword bears the inscription CAI • IVL • CAES • ENSIS CALIBVRNVS. The characters "CAI. IVL. CAES." are an abbreviated form of Caius (or Gaius) Julius Caesar. Manfredi loosely translates ensis caliburnus as "sword of steel". Ensis is Latin for "sword".^[3] While in reality Geoffrey of Monmouth's Latinization Caliburn eventually developed into the form Excalibur, the film explains the origin of the name Excalibur by having the inscription obscured by moss; the remaining letters spell out E S CALIBVR.

 출처(일부 전재) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Legion

포스터를 기준으로 보자면 '시저의 검'에 중점을 둔 것 같은데 그렇다면 검의 기원과 유래는 둘째치더라도
검을 둘러싼 모험과 침탈에 맞춰야 하는데 어린 시저와 몰입 안되는 군인을 중심으로 움직이니 죽도 밥도 안 돼지~
어쨌거나, 검을 얻었으면 제국을 부흥시키든지...

기독교 중심의 역사관은 이교도/야만족을 전면에 내세우며 핑계로 삼는 것이 역시나 어정쩡하다.
이교도 중심시각으로 보자면, 주류 기독교에 대한 정복과 흥망성쇠에 다름 아니니 결국 마찬가지잖아.
그런데, 왜 동맹 파기를 핑계로?
패자는 말이 없다~ 그러나, 변명은 영화를 통해 드러난다.