Homer\u2019s Odyssey is one of the oldest stories known to man, so old that the circumstances surrounding its authorship \u2013 who Homer was, when the stories were penned \u2013 form their own genre of historical inquiry. But what\u2019s not a Homeric Question is how highly regarded the Odyssey as a story is; many of its themes and motifs remain relatable despite the thousands of years of human progress, and the hundreds of translations the Greek tale has received in as much time.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Christopher Nolan\u2019s <\/b>The Odyssey<\/i><\/b> <\/i>is the latest in the pantheon of retellings. To hear the director talk about the film, there\u2019s a certain reverence for the legend and its sheer scale. And yet, Nolan decided against a word-for-word adaptation (I\u2019d still be in the theatre if that were the case), nor did he opt for a simple abridgement of the tale. Instead, The Odyssey <\/i>is best described as a re-interpretation of the poem.<\/p>\n
Matt Damon plays Odysseus, King of Ithaca, who is known within Homer\u2019s story for his cunning, pride and moral ambiguity. But just as adapting the entirety of the Odyssey would be a tall task, so too would adapting all facets of Odysseus\u2019s character. Instead, Damon cuts a straightfowardly tragic figure; a war-weary but still prideful warrior who, against all odds, seeks to secure homecoming not only for himself but for as many of his doomed men as possible, occasional defiance of the gods notwithstanding. I can\u2019t say that he convinced me of Odysseus\u2019s intellect, but Damon slips into the archetype of a tired soldier with ease.<\/p>\n Matt Damon stars as Odysseus, with Nolan\u2019s signature tragic bent.<\/p>\n Image: Universal Pictures<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n It\u2019s this war-weary lens that Nolan chooses to re-interpret Homer\u2019s Odyssey through. Without giving too much away, one of the major changes compared to the typical story was the significance of the Trojan Horse, and Odysseus\u2019s involvement with it. The savageness in the sacking of Troy, of the decade-long Trojan War in general, is very much a focal point in the film \u2013 visually, as we see that magnificent Troy set getting burned down in gripping battle sequences, but also thematically.<\/p>\n Homer\u2019s Odyssey is a story set during the collapse of Bronze Age Greece. Nolan manifests that within The Odyssey <\/i>by depicting a growing rot and decay in the film\u2019s Mycenaean society, a feeling which is palpable through the writing and acting (at least from the major cast). Between the brutal sack of Troy, the threat of an invasive \u2018People of the Sea\u2019, and the abuse of Zeus\u2019s Law by the boorish suitors \u2013 led by Robert Pattinson\u2019s Antinous, who is as slimy and snivelling as they come \u2013 you can feel that the world these characters live in, and all the norms that sustain it, is in decline.<\/p>\n And Odysseus, too, finds himself at the centre of this decline as both a perpetrator and a victim.<\/p>\n The film pairs this theme with the notion of a warrior\u2019s \u2018homecoming\u2019, or rather, that not all warriors get the warmest of welcomes home. There is a parallel between the trials and tribulations Odysseus faces to get to Ithaca and his family, and the unfortunate way in which many soldiers return irrevocably changed to a home they don\u2019t recognise, and one which does not recognise them. To be clear, it\u2019s not a revolutionary idea in fiction, but considering the on-screen carnage that Odysseus and his men face on the way home (throw in a terrifying cyclops and a body horror scene in there), The Odyssey <\/i>sells this thesis \u2013 war is hell, and coming home is its own battle \u2013 with considerable intensity.<\/p>\n The Trojan Horse features more prominently here than in Homer\u2019s Odyssey. Good, because the set design in this film is impressive.<\/p>\n Image: Universal Pictures<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n What\u2019s less impressive are the compromises needed to give Damon\u2019s Odysseus as much screentime as possible. Even a three-hour epic is not enough to capture the minutiae of all 24 books, it seems.<\/p>\n Those who know Homer\u2019s Odyssey in and out may bemoan how much of the source material was slashed. But even for the general audience, certain pacing decisions, while understandable, force the film to stumble. For instance, the initial set up regarding Tom Holland\u2019s Telemachus, Anne Hathaway\u2019s Penelope and the 108 suitors are given all but the opening minutes of the movie. As a result, the viewer barely has a moment to breathe before they are plunged into Telemachus\u2019s search for his father. It\u2019s only when the film actually starts depicting Odysseus and his men that it settles into an agreeable rhythm.\u00a0<\/p>\n Making it worse is a somewhat muddy dialogue mix. I\u2019m hoping it might have been a feature of the theatre I visited, but you might find yourself straining to hear what the characters are saying, especially if they\u2019re whispering. Subtitles would help, but it would be unfortunate for the Nolan sound mixing curse to strike again, especially as this film opens really quickly. Those going in without contextual knowledge of the source material or Greek mythology might soon find themselves lost if they don\u2019t take note of the names.<\/p>\n On this point, while it\u2019s not strictly necessary to read all of Homer\u2019s Odyssey before seeing this film, I wouldn\u2019t advise going in completely blind. Reading the first few books (or chapters) will help a lot, especially in orienting yourself when the film opens. But for the rest of the film, while Homer\u2019s Odyssey and Nolan\u2019s movies are known for being non-linear, I didn\u2019t find The Odyssey\u2019s <\/i>overall storyline particularly hard to understand, even as it makes full use of flashbacks and smash cuts.\u00a0<\/p>\n A mention should also be given to the casting in The Odyssey<\/i>. The adaptation slims down the list of characters compared to its source material, but apart from Damon, the (contentiously) star-studded cast doesn\u2019t get much of a chance to shine. There are a few standout performances, though; Hathaway finds a balance between anger, empowerment and wistfulness as Penelope, and I quite enjoyed Himesh Patel\u2019s Eurylochus being loyal but increasingly fed up with Odysseus\u2019s ideas. Again, Pattinson\u2019s Antinous remains ever so punchable throughout the film.<\/p>\n Most of the star-studded cast are relegated to supporting roles, but there are a few standouts.<\/p>\n Image: Universal Pictures<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Every adaptation of Homer\u2019s Odyssey <\/i>changes depending on the environment, audience and storyteller. I\u2019ll admit, I didn\u2019t know much about the story before being assigned this review, nor Greek mythology for that matter. But while I caught myself up to speed as much as I could, I realised at some point that it might not matter as much. Not only because matching up to a real classics-lover would take more than just speed-reading chapters (and yes, sparknotes), but I had a growing expectation that The Odyssey<\/i> wouldn\u2019t be so dogmatic in its re-telling of the story, the more I learned about its history.<\/p>\n After all, Homer\u2019s Odyssey has its roots in oral tradition, where stories are constantly changing and shifting. Because of that, I wanted to try watching this rendition without too much baggage, though equipped with as much contextual knowledge as I could. In the end, Nolan makes this Odyssey his own, complete with tragic heroes (his favourite!) and a message as old as human history. Your enjoyment of The Odyssey <\/i>depends on whether you like Nolan\u2019s style and his quirks, and whether that message, what he deems important, resonates with you. But if not, it is <\/i>one of the oldest stories in the world \u2013 there will always be someone willing to tell you their version of it, too.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Homer\u2019s Odyssey is one of the oldest stories known to man, so old that the circumstances surrounding its authorship \u2013 who Homer was, when the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1864,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech-gadgets-reviews","wpcat-32-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=70218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70218\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=70218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=70218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=70218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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