Christopher Nolan is a rather predictable director. That may not necessarily be the worst trait for a blockbuster filmmaker to have, especially given the scale of his productions, but many of his filmic decisions, from his camera placements (especially now, with his complete conversion to the IMAX format), to his intense sound design and nonlinear editing rhythm, are all par for the course when watching one of his works. Equally, his dedication to avoiding computer generated graphics is another given when one goes to watch his films, and these effects vary from a Boeing 747 getting destroyed in real time for Tenet, to an almost face-melting simulation of an atomic bomb explosion in Oppenheimer. Consider his routineness a blessing and curse; a blessing as, at the very least, audiences are almost always guaranteed an entertaining viewing experience every few years or so, and a curse as his retelling of Odysseus’ epic journey home to Ithaca seldom amounts to more than what you would expect from a Christopher Nolan film. This by no means renders the film a failure–in fact, quite the opposite, as it manages to be persistently entertaining throughout its almost three-hour runtime–and it does make the moments where it surpasses any preconceived expectations all the more awe inducing. Unfortunately, it also leaves these instances rather isolated, and while the film surrounding these particular scenes is an enjoyable one, it is difficult not to feel a little moreish once exposed to heights that a Nolan version of The Odyssey can reach.
The strongest sequences of this rendition of the Homeric epic are easily Odysseus’ tales of his perilous attempts at bringing his men home from Troy. Matt Damon plays the infamous veteran of the Trojan war, traumatised by the atrocities and destruction that he and his men assisted in committing while fighting in the name of King Agamemnon (whose face is never entirely revealed, but is played by Benny Safdie). Nolan has Calypso (Charlize Theron) refresh her captive’s memory before he sets sail for home, as opposed to Odysseus traditionally recounting his journey at a Phaeacian banquet. A high point of the film is when Odysseus’ men encounter the witch Circe (played tremendously by Samantha Morton), who turns them into pigs by having them gorge on a bewitched stew. Again, Nolan’s dedication to practical effects really shines during these scenes, as Circe molds and sculpts the men’s faces as they undergo their porcine metamorphosis. Odysseus and his crew eventually stumble upon the giant Laestrygonians in a woods that plays tricks on them. Their attempts to run away are hindered by the trees of the forest multiplying, caging some of his men and blocking their path back to their ships. Any tension during these instances is completely amplified by Ludwig Göransson’s grand score, which he achieved by experimenting with scrap metals, gongs, and three-thousand year old instruments. Another botched pitstop attempt that Nolan includes is the men’s detour into the cave of Polyphemus the cyclops, created with a gigantic puppet and some terrifying after-effects. Yet, as impressive and daunting as the cyclops is, the film manages to blunt Odysseus’ cunning and hubris during his confrontation with the monster, as it completely neglects to have him address himself as “No Man” to Polyphemus for a later attack that has the cyclops exclaiming that “No Man” is attacking him, so as not to alert his neighbours on the island.
Despite depicting the Mycenaeans of Greece’s Bronze Age, Nolan’s approach is quite modern, with an emphasis on Odysseus’ trauma from Troy and losing his men. The film even chooses to deal with the gods in a down-to-earth manner, with Zendaya’s depiction of Athena being a direct result of a manifestation of Odysseus’ guilty conscience over the execution of a Trojan priestess. In fact, besides a brief trip to Hades (the underworld, not the god of the dead), there is little input from the Greek gods, and they have virtually no presence. Contrast his approach with Federico Fellini’s, for his 1969 adaptation of Petronius’ Satyricon. This tale may originate from a much later Roman antiquity (the film’s tagline reading, “Rome. Before Christ. After Fellini”), but Fellini treats its archaic setting as if it were another world. The viewing experience is jarring, as background characters glare smirkingly into the camera, its sets are both grand and eerily empty, and the central actors move about the frame and speak to each other as if they are starring in a televised play that was filmed by inhabitants of a distant planet in the Andromeda galaxy–one could even argue that, if a couple of the costumes were replaced with space suits, it would be almost in-differentiable from a sci-fi film. Yet, this otherworldly approach broaches something that Nolan’s Odyssey does not seem even remotely interested in addressing: that this ancient world is almost completely unknowable to a modern audience. The short-lived HBO series Rome follows a similar train of thought, albeit in a manner much more palatable to contemporary television viewers, as the Rome that the show’s characters inhabit is casually bizarre and cruel–with nonchalant instances of slaughter, sacrifices made to their gods, and one of the two central protagonists engaging with the Roman slave trade as a form of legitimate business–but it is done so without contemporary scrutiny. Brutality is a mundaneity in their world, and the show does not enforce current guilt on its characters. These ancient worlds may share threads with our own, as people can still read the surviving works of these times and resonate with certain aspects, but their societal and cultural norms are ones that are relatively alien to an individual of the present. Of course, both works mentioned are of times better documented (during Nero’s reign and Julius Caesar’s respectively), but The Odyssey is of a time that predates these civilisations. Surviving records and artifacts are more sparse, and while modern audiences can empathise with Odysseus’ plight, and possibly even derive a little bit of satisfaction once he inevitably wreaks his revenge, the Mycenaean society and their everyday rituals would most likely be as obscure to us as those performed by outer space beings. The original story has Odysseus hang the women slaves that were raped by the suitors, and although Mia Goth’s Melantho does get locked in to the slaughter room, her death is completely unseen.
That being said, The Odyssey is quite clearly a profoundly influential tale of antiquity that has inspired a fecundity of artists to create their own interpretations of the work, and morph it into different, and often more contemporary settings; the modernist masterpiece of literature that is James Joyce’s Ulysses, and the Coen Brothers’ fantastic film O Brother, Where Art Thou? being some of the more interesting recent iterations, as Joyce loosely adapts and reworks events into one single day in Dublin in 1904, and the Coen’s recount the trek with a group of escaped convicts in 1930s Mississippi. Even Ulysses 31, a 1981 animated series, brings the story to the 31st century and has characters planet hopping in spaceships. Pulling the epic from its initial prehistory setting is often an interesting way to weave its issues and themes into a time closer to us, and to help it resonate better with viewers, as well as displaying the durability of the tale. However, Nolan’s iteration does not tamper with the setting. There are a couple of anachronisms present in the dialogue and in some of the design aspects as is wont in large budget historical films, but its intentions are vastly different from any of the examples given.
It makes sense that Christopher Nolan would choose The Odyssey as his first feature length to be shot entirely on 70mm IMAX film, as this large and imposing format deserves a monumental story to display its capabilities (even if there are only around forty cinema screens worldwide that can show the film as intended). One need not traverse the web for as long as Odysseus traversed the wine-dark sea to find discourse regarding any film adaptations, or translations from the Greek texts. Emily Wilson’s recent translation, which initially inspired Nolan to adapt the tale, has come under fire for approaching the tale in a more barebones manner, all while maintaining an iambic pentameter throughout, and featuring language that may be considered less decorative than the popular Robert Fagles translation of the ’90s. But, as with the multitude of filmic and literary variations, is it not fitting to have a range of different approaches to Homer? And, with ever decreasing literacy rates, can we really afford to forgo more versions of works from antiquity? As with the translations, the film has also received criticism since the release of the trailers, particularly for certain casting decisions. Nolan has certainly miscast some roles, with Tom Holland being a fairly underwhelming Telemachus, and Jon Bernthal portraying Menelaus unwontedly, but Elliot Page’s Sinon and Lupita Nyong’o’s Helen are some of his more inspired choices.
The opening scene featuring Travis Scott as a bard in Odysseus’ halls may be emblematic of this decade of cinema as a whole, and only time will tell whether that’s a blessing or a curse.
