Protagonist

Euripides in Exile on Main Street
The four protagonists are:

* a martial arts student (Mark Salzman)
* a German terrorist (Hans Klein)
* an ex-gay evangelist (Mark Pierpont)
* a bank robber (Joe Loya)

The premise for this documentary is to attempt to make connections between Euripidean tragedy & modern life. Whether the documentarian achieves this goal is debatable; nevertheless, the four subjects chosen for study have fascinating stories to tell.

Why Euripides? Euripides was known for his strong female characters (Medea), his intelligent slaves, and his willingness to mock the conventional heroes & hero worship of ancient & classical Greece. Euripides also strikes many modern scholars as being the most modern of all of the Greek tragedians as he was the one most concerned with the inner life & what truly motivates each man or woman's actions.

I think the film is extremely strong, but would have been stronger had there been at least one female...

Hell is for Heroes
In "Protagonist", director Jessica Yu brilliantly juxtaposes the works of Euripedes with the saga of four men who relate to us their journeys through various degrees of obsession. Although the four could not be more different (an ex-terrorist, and ex-"Ex-Gay", an ex-bank robber and a former martial-arts fanatic) there is a common thread in their stories. Yu was fortunate to find four men that are not only articulate enough to tell their stories well, but men whose sagas are truly riveting. Her use of the puppets acting out not only the classic scenes from Euripides plays, but actual portions of the mens lives is inspired; scenes that could have been either maudlin of far too much for the viewer have both a dark beauty and an edge of horror that's fascinating. This is not only a brilliant film, but an important one; in these times where we are asked to think only in black and white, it's important to see that where human beings are concerned, there are only shades of grey.

Revisiting Euripides
I'll admit I was a little skeptical about watching a documentary about
Euripides featuring puppets, but after some initial skepticism, I was won
over by the stories of the four men. To some, the puppets may be jarring
(this might be the only movie I've ever seen featuring puppet violence),
but they do play an integral role in tying together four very different,
but similar stories.

The four protagonists- Mark Salzman, a martial arts enthusiast yearning
for dignity, Mark Pierpont, a Christian evangelist struggling with his
homosexuality, Hans-Joachim Klein, a left-wing German terrorist, and Joe
Loya, a serial bank robber- each have a fascinating story to tell, and Yu
interweaves their narratives with quotes from Euripides' The Bacchae in a
way that provides a cohesive structure to the movie.

What struck me about the stories is how much these men grow up in the
shadow of their families, in particular their...

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