The 2022-2023 Film Journal Entry #42: "Conan the Barbarian"

The 2022-2023 Film Journal Entry #42: "Conan the Barbarian"

The 2022-2023 Film Journal Entry #42

By Xavier E. Palacios

"Conan the Barbarian"

3.5 out of 5

Directed by John Milius

Rated R

Based on the Conan the Barbarian stories by Robert E. Howard, the titular hero, no longer an enslaved boy but a free man, embarks on a quest of self-discovery, revenge, and adventure in an ancient land of sorcery and danger.

The first time I really encountered Robert E. Howard's thriving creation was in a print ad in the first issue of the Star Wars: General Grievous mini-series back in early 2005. The ad featured the premiere cover for what would become the collection, Conan: The Frost-Giant's Daughter and Other Stories. The titular pulp hero looked like a mixture of a Viking, a Roman centurion, and, well, a barbarian. He held a sword and dagger both seeped in blood. Dead enemies were strewn around him in the snow. The ad, which stayed in my head for over a decade, was not my cup of tea back then, yet I immediately and certainly knew I had to discover more about this literary character one day. I mean, he is called "Conan the Barbarian". How could my curiosity not be peaked?

Sadly, I still do not know too much about the character or his stories. (I did try to find his first story at a book fair in high school once, and a nice old lady told me I should be looking for "The Phoenix on the Sword"). My research led me to learn more about Howard himself and the sword and sorcery sub-genre of fantasy. Before I continue, I will say I have no interest in viewing Conan as some kind of glorious, he-man archetype for the heinous "Literally Me" social gimmick. To me, these stories are exaggerated fantasies where everything, from the muscles, violence, sex, adventures, weapons, monsters, lands, and language, is heightened past ordinary limits; deliberately hyperbolic. To see Conan as some kind of real hero children or adolescents can look up to or aspire to become is laughable, infuriating, and suspect. (However, I do understand seeing his mighty physicality and unrelating determination to be inspiring, albeit in a basic way, as these can be noble pursuits). Frankly, I do not find most sword and sorcery stories to be much more than pulp adventures, and proclaiming "deep" ideas intrinsically lie within these tales feels gratingly pretentious.

Yet, despite my perspectives, I have absolutely no ill will towards this sub-genre, nor Conan. On the contrary, in my own ways, I admire them. Conan the Barbarian, The Witcher tales, the Diablo video games, Primal (the series is more of a cave man saga but sits more comfortably in this arena of the imagination), Rogues of Merth: The Adventures of Dareon and Blue, and Fire and Ice. Stories of sexy male fighters, iron maidens, spooky creatures, beautiful damsels, black-and-white morals, and, of course, fortune and glory. These violent, and not usually feminist, stories where might can make right is, to be completely honest, high fantasy melodrama at its finest.

After all, we brutal, bi-pedal, and hairless apes are creatures of carnage and long for thrills. Our ancient daydreams of what lies beyond the savannah horizon were exactly what Conan is: badass high-adventure. There is a primordial and instinctive simplicity to the sword and sorcery tales I appreciate as both a reader and thinker. The Legend of Zelda stories are great fairy tales of knights and medieval magic invented for an era after King Arthur sailed for Avalon. Prior, The Lord of the Rings is the greatest story ever told that speaks to our souls. But long before these sagas, when we humans were but cave dwellers frightful of and hungry for mammoths, the stories we first invented featured figures like Howard's barbarian.