The Odyssey

[Kumquatqueen]

A better Odyssey, I give you the arrow through the ax handles.

My goodness, that's cheesy! The new one is definitely an improvement (especially the configuration of the axe handles).

I love the Irish Times piece. The Odyssey could definitely have done with a little lightening from dark humour - some might say the football had that already...

 

[Voboy]

I am waiting for @SimonDoom and @Voboy to see the movie so we can hopefully discuss it free of all this obsessive talk about pro-woke and anti-woke, which I already demonstrated to be a moot point.

Just walked out of it. I'll write up a review later, but I disagree with your interpretation of what the film was about. I think I enjoyed it more as a result.

Good flick. VERY accessible. Even my 12-year-old "got it."

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Just walked out of it. I'll write up a review later, but I disagree with your interpretation of what the film was about. I think I enjoyed it more as a result.

Good flick. VERY accessible. Even my 12-year-old "got it."

Yeah, I think it did a good job of making the Odyssey and ancient Greek culture and their gods accessible to a generation who generally won't have learnt about it in school or seen other films based on the stories, and have only a vague idea of what the Trojan Horse was.

The stuff about what counts as abusing hospitality vs expectations of receiving it was kinda confused - but so is the real world. Getting the teenage main audience thinking about it is not a bad thing.

I've never seen a Nolan film before, except one of the Batman ones which only made me resolve never to see superheroes without captions ever again - it was one mumbling smear of darkness. I do want to see Tenet now it's on telly so I can have captions.

 

[Writer61]

This is an enjoyable piece from The Irish Times comparing The Odyssey to the recent World Cup final...

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/...harder-watch-than-the-woeful-world-cup-final/

I'm going to see The Odyssey tomorrow, but it will have to be absolutely terrible to be worse than that atrocious WC match.

 

[Voboy]

Herewith, FWIW, my review. I won't warn for spoilers, since this is a three-thousand year old story and, well, you should know it anyway.

Nolan’s Odyssey was good entertainment, well-filmed and well-acted (if not always perfectly written), and I found it very understandable and linear compared to some previous big-budget Nolan films.

He explored all the themes he’s been exploring in almost every movie since Memento: unreliable narration, the curse of knowledge, the definition of happiness, the nature of duties and obligations. All of these are deep-seated subtexts built into the basic Odyssey story, and they are interesting (though unresolved). He does his usual thing with musical motifs, including a particularly effective one that links the Siren passage to his monologue with Penelope toward the end of the film. There are probably more, but I’d need to rewatch; that one was too obvious to ignore, and is a key to the main subtext of the film: our ability to find happiness.

I do not think that the message of the film is “obey the gods, or else.” Xenia, which the film loosely refers to as a “law of Zeus,” is not what the film is about; it is the framework for what the film is about. Primarily, Nolan is looking at the nature of choices: their consequences, their antecedents, their reasons. In pondering the level at which Odysseus is able to make his own choices, Nolan makes a nice homage to Homer’s Iliad (which is also about choices).

Odysseus shows that it’s okay to make your own choices, as long as you are willing to face the consequences. For him, that is where happiness lies (after a lot of people die). Calypso says as much, though she herself is a long time coming to the realization that Odysseus’ happiness is different from what she thought it was. And, as an aside, I'd been wondering about the nature of Calypso since I read the poem in junior high; Charlize Theron taught it to me very effectively in just about ten minutes' screen time.

Lots to unpack. It’s a movie that makes you think. I suspect those most disappointed with it are those who expected something Nolan never promised to deliver. It is not woke, and I don't think he intended it to ever be seen as woke. I think he was telling a Chris Nolan story in a Chris Nolan way.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Herewith, FWIW, my review. I won't warn for spoilers, since this is a three-thousand year old story and, well, you should know it anyway.

Nolan’s Odyssey was good entertainment, well-filmed and well-acted (if not always perfectly written), and I found it very understandable and linear compared to some previous big-budget Nolan films.

He explored all the themes he’s been exploring in almost every movie since Memento: unreliable narration, the curse of knowledge, the definition of happiness, the nature of duties and obligations. All of these are deep-seated subtexts built into the basic Odyssey story, and they are interesting (though unresolved). He does his usual thing with musical motifs, including a particularly effective one that links the Siren passage to his monologue with Penelope toward the end of the film. There are probably more, but I’d need to rewatch; that one was too obvious to ignore, and is a key to the main subtext of the film: our ability to find happiness.

I do not think that the message of the film is “obey the gods, or else.” Xenia, which the film loosely refers to as a “law of Zeus,” is not what the film is about; it is the framework for what the film is about. Primarily, Nolan is looking at the nature of choices: their consequences, their antecedents, their reasons. In pondering the level at which Odysseus is able to make his own choices, Nolan makes a nice homage to Homer’s Iliad (which is also about choices).

Odysseus shows that it’s okay to make your own choices, as long as you are willing to face the consequences. For him, that is where happiness lies (after a lot of people die). Calypso says as much, though she herself is a long time coming to the realization that Odysseus’ happiness is different from what she thought it was. And, as an aside, I'd been wondering about the nature of Calypso since I read the poem in junior high; Charlize Theron taught it to me very effectively in just about ten minutes' screen time.

Lots to unpack. It’s a movie that makes you think. I suspect those most disappointed with it are those who expected something Nolan never promised to deliver. It is not woke, and I don't think he intended it to ever be seen as woke. I think he was telling a Chris Nolan story in a Chris Nolan way.

An interesting view. I agree with some of it, and I disagree with the majority of it.

I respect your view, and I suspect that the truth might be somewhere in between. I also can't help thinking that you are guilty of seeing too much in what actually happened on the screen, just because it's Nolan. It's like when we read a work of some great writer and find ideas that the author never even thought about writing. We often see what we expect to see.

 

[Voboy]

An interesting view. I agree with some of it, and I disagree with the majority of it.

I respect your view, and I suspect that the truth might be somewhere in between. I also can't help thinking that you are guilty of seeing too much in what actually happened on the screen, just because it's Nolan. It's like when we read a work of some great writer and find ideas that the author never even thought about writing. We often see what we expect to see.

Nolan has certain themes he is well known for putting into his films. He's spoken and written extensively about them. Why would I not expect them to be present here as well?

I was quite struck by this film's similarity to Memento. Is it okay to choose to be happy if you know it harms others? Even if it's an illusion? It's what Lenny spends the last few minutes of the earlier film wondering about, and Calypso is asking the exact same questions here, answered by Odysseus' furrowed brow and his eventual choice. Was I not supposed to notice that?

 

[PennyThompson]

I just got home from a (very) late imax screening that a friend took me to! I enjoyed it quite a lot. I'm going to sleep on it, ponder it while working tomorrow, and maybe share some thoughts later.

I have some gripes, which are not unlike my gripes with prior Nolan movies, but he mostly tempers the impulses that I don't enjoy in his aesthetic. I think it very much has something to say about our current time and place, more so than I think Nolan has ever said, it's not subtle about it!

More later

 

[TheWritingGroup]

Historian David Miano, a person who teaches the Odyssey at the college level, liked the movie (8.5 out of 10). He points out that casting a black Helen is actually an in-joke for people who know the poem and period well.

 

[TheOneUpright]

Historian David Miano, a person who teaches the Odyssey at the college level, liked the movie (8.5 out of 10). He points out that casting a black Helen is actually an in-joke for people who know the poem and period well.

And here’s someone who didn't like it.

The problem with woke sympathizers is that they'll never admit to being one.

Now, I'm not saying it's not an entertaining standalone flick (to some), just don't call black white.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

OK, I'm calling it. TheOneUpright is trolling the board.

 

[TheOneUpright]

OK, I'm calling it. TheOneUpright is trolling the board.

What she said.

Have I hurt the left wing culture warrior's feelings by saying something truthful that doesn't fit your world view?

When you feel the need to get nasty it just shows how intellectually bankrupt your arguments are. You won't address the point, so you resort to attacking the person.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I already posted my review, and I said why I didn't enjoy the movie much, but I have to hand it to Nolan: He makes great Rorschach tests.

 

[ColtonWrites]

And here’s someone who didn't like it.

The problem with woke sympathizers is that they'll never admit to being one.

Now, I'm not saying it's not an entertaining standalone flick (to some), just don't call black white.

Most people don't identify with the insults thrown at them, no.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Historian David Miano, a person who teaches the Odyssey at the college level, liked the movie (8.5 out of 10). He points out that casting a black Helen is actually an in-joke for people who know the poem and period well.

https://apnews.com/article/odyssey-...-translators-ea67da1d543d021773824bd7e8de8abe

The translator who's version Nolan based his work on wasn't impressed...

 

[TheOneUpright]

I already posted my review, and I said why I didn't enjoy the movie much, but I have to hand it to Nolan: He makes great Rorschach tests.

When people judge a movie’s quality strictly by whether or not they enjoyed it (sound familiar?) while brushing off obvious, troubling issues, it goes a bit beyond a simple Rorschach test.

 

[TheOneUpright]

Let's say you don't care about the cultural messaging, or the casting, or the politics, or any of that. You just want to see a well-constructed movie on a technical level. Well, the problem is that it's impossible to overlook all these flaws because the film itself is not very well constructed or all that entertaining for the most part. It's disjointed, dull, self-serious, convoluted - somehow feeling both verbose and overly rushed at the same time.

The dialogue is some of the worst I've ever heard in a critically acclaimed film. "On the nose" and "clunky" are descriptions that can't even begin to describe the script. The Odyssey is the kind of movie where a character in the Bronze Age actually says - I'm not making this up - "The Age of Bronze is collapsing."

And the dialogue is like that throughout. I mean, you cannot have genuinely subpar, sometimes bafflingly stupid dialogue in a masterpiece film.

 

[alohadave]

Yeah, I think it did a good job of making the Odyssey and ancient Greek culture and their gods accessible to a generation who generally won't have learnt about it in school or seen other films based on the stories, and have only a vague idea of what the Trojan Horse was.

The stuff about what counts as abusing hospitality vs expectations of receiving it was kinda confused - but so is the real world. Getting the teenage main audience thinking about it is not a bad thing.

I thought it was interesting that he put in about the Sea Peoples, and the Bronze Age Collapse.

 

[alohadave]

And here’s someone who didn't like it.

The problem with woke sympathizers is that they'll never admit to being one.

Now, I'm not saying it's not an entertaining standalone flick (to some), just don't call black white.

Curious choice using Matt Walsh as your counterpoint opinion. Reveals more about your position than anything about the movie.

 

[TheOneUpright]

Curious choice using Matt Walsh as your counterpoint opinion. Reveals more about your position than anything about the movie.

I’d never heard of him until a couple of hours ago, but considering he’s one of the most eloquent, knowledgeable, and persuasive figures I’ve ever come across on YouTube, I’ll take that as a compliment.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Curious choice using Matt Walsh as your counterpoint opinion. Reveals more about your position than anything about the movie.

Yup, shoot the messenger, ignore the content.
Very tolerant and open minded.

 

[Voboy]

I’d never heard of him until a couple of hours ago, but considering he’s one of the most eloquent, knowledgeable, and persuasive figures I’ve ever come across on YouTube, I’ll take that as a compliment.

I'm not a culture-wars person, but even I've heard of Matt Walsh.

He's very good at getting clicks on social media, and he tends to say things that ensure that happens. Those who are into that kind of content, I'm sure, enjoy him quite a bit. He's hardly alone in posting that sort of content from both sides, but based on what I know about him? I'm not surprised he dislikes this film.

I'd be utterly shocked if he'd actually bothered watching it.

 

[GuiltyCowboy]

I’d never heard of him until a couple of hours ago, but considering he’s one of the most eloquent, knowledgeable, and persuasive figures I’ve ever come across on YouTube, I’ll take that as a compliment.

This sounded almost persuasive until you qualified it with ‘on YouTube’!

I very much disagree with your politics - and I was amused at just how wrong you were about the differences between British and American actors - but I’m going to say this: I agree with your take on the film. Dialogue was awful and many scenes seemed rushed while the overall tempo was ponderous. I found it oddly emotionless.

I don’t think a film needs to be perfect to be worthy of one’s time, thankfully. You can always find something in a film to enjoy - just the clothes, one particular actor, whatever - and I found the Trojan horse particularly vivid and the Cyclops too. I would have paid $6 to see those scenes alone. $12 too.

I suspect the vast majority of the film’s audience will enjoy it in a popcorn sort of way.

 

[Voboy]

Dialogue was awful and many scenes seemed rushed while the overall tempo was ponderous. I found it oddly emotionless.

...

I suspect the vast majority of the film’s audience will enjoy it in a popcorn sort of way.

I do think it's a MUCH more enjoyable movie if you already know the story. If I'd been completely ignorant of the nature of the poem, I'd have been utterly lost at many points.

My assumption is that the filmmakers (not just Nolan, but the production and marketing teams as well) assumed the audience would already know the story. Thus they got away with less exposition and more spectacle. I thought the pacing was fine. Diff'rent strokes and all that. Nolan had the same problem making Dunkirk, and spoke about it: how do you add suspense to a story that everyone already knows the ending of?

I think he got Dunkirk right. I'm less happy about The Odyssey, but I still enjoyed the film quite a bit, on more than one level. As the reaction to this film has shown, Nolan was going to piss people off no matter what he did.

 

[GuiltyCowboy]

As the reaction to this film has shown, Nolan was going to piss people off no matter what he did.

I do find the idea of being pissed off by a movie very weird.

You can not enjoy certain elements of a film, or the entire film in fact, but that never equates to me being pissed off at it. It's like being pissed off at someone offering you a piece of homemade cake. Just say 'oh, that's kind, thank you but not for me,' and move on.

I stand by that even when you think about politics (not 100% of the time but a good 98%). Do I think important, complex problems can be reduced to simple scenarios where one man can ride in and use his moral fiber to fix it all? I do not. But I'm still able to enjoy a Clint Eastwood movie.