The Odyssey And The Oddity
I took a break from theatre to go see Christopher Nolan’s bladder-busting three-hour blockbuster The Odyssey. I can confidently report that it’s okay. I won’t presume to “review” it. Film criticism is above my pay grade, but I will permit myself some observations.
It seems that, in addition to inventing philosophy, the ancient Greeks invented a whole slew of cinematic conventions – the road movie, the buddy movie, the war movie, and the slasher movie. They just had to wait for someone to come up with a camera big enough to do their concepts justice.
My memory of The Odyssey, the epic poem attributed to someone named Homer who lived (maybe) some 3,000 years ago, is a bit hazy but I do recall that Homer’s world was proudly pagan. It was the sort of world in which pillaging your enemy’s town, killing everyone in sight, raping the women, and impaling infants on spikes was not merely considered the done thing. It was also kinda fun, especially if you survived to be hailed as a hero.
Nolan’s Odysseus (a more than commendable Matt Damon) is cut from a much different cloth. He is wracked by guilt and uncertainty about all manner of things, from the sheer brutality of war, to failing the men under his command, to missing his wife Penelope (a gracefully ageing Anne Hathaway).
It seems that Nolan’s Odyssey has become more of a political and cultural event than an artistic one. A number of loud voices on the right are decrying its “wokeness,” especially the interracial casting and the use of a trans actor to portray a warrior. These are people who obviously haven’t seen a stage play in a while, maybe ever.
There have been predictable complaints about the liberties Nolan took with Homer’s tale. I have made so many similar complaints about so many classic plays that I guess I’m pretty much complained out. Nolan’s “improvements,” even the silly notion of having Odysseus and Penelope sail off into the setting sun, didn’t really bother me. (Although I did miss Telemachus hanging all the housemaids who had sex with the suitors. Nothing like a mass lynching of nubile young women to put butts in seats!)
For me, the greatest cultural commentary came from the Previews of Coming Attractions that preceded The Odyssey itself. They seemed to herald the imminent collapse of civilization as we know it. Who goes to see this stuff?
Surprisingly, I found myself less than impressed by the IMAX experience. Now granted, I was not in one of the 9 Canadian IMAX theatres screening the film in Nolan’s preferred IMAX format. The one in Waterloo seemed pretty much like any other movie theatre screen, just bigger. Maybe the ever increasing size of the TV screens that greet me at Costco has made me jaded.
Of course, one of the attractions of films like The Odyssey is to be gobsmacked by the special effects, which are pretty darned good. I especially admired the portrayal of Polyphemus. I read that Nolan eschewed AI-generated slop in favour of more traditional cinematic magic. Good for him.
But, y’know, I found the storm sequence in Antoni Cimolino’s production of The Tempest, every bit as impressive as anything served up by Nolan’s multi-million dollar budget, and a lot more immediate, too.
I can’t say I’m sorry to have seen it. One must keep up with the zeitgeist after all. And some observers are saying that The Odyssey is heralding the return of large audiences to the movies. If true, it’s a consummation devoutly to be wished.
