No, I’ve never read Homer’s epic poem/book The Odyssey, so let’s get that out of the way.
But this weekend I did see Christopher Nolan’s film interpretation, The Odyssey. As did more than a quarter billion dollars-worth of ticket buyers.
How was it?
Brilliantly made, very well-acted and an incredible sweep of the visual wonders of the world.
At almost three hours it is never uninteresting and often captures ancient times as metaphor for contemporary times in a way that is quite accessible. And …apt.
Sadly, we as a species have not moved on much from 6th century B.C. in terms of pillaging villages, people and whole countries to accrue power and riches for our own benefit, faux safety or simply because we can.
And in terms of the human story, well, that’s also timeless. And best summed up by my husband of many years early on in our relationship back in the late 1980s when he was studying for his PhD in film studies:
It’s always about the father. Or mother.
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In other words, just when you think you’re living through the darkest times of the apocalypse you realize the apocalypse has been going on since the beginning of man and has no intention of letting up any time soon.
If ever.
And that the more you try to run away from your family the more your responsibility to it will haunt you. Or even help you. If you let it.
Which does not mean this film and this story is not hopeful or moral or, dare I say the word, entertaining.
It is.
It is also brutal, depressing, thoughtful, violently graphic and, well, dare I say it, beautiful.
Apocalyptic behavior Nolan-ized for our contemporary pallets and collective benefits.
Consider its lessons on your own terms or simply resume your video game, news channel or screen of choices.
No god can tell you what to do and at the end of your day it’s your choice anyway. Just as it was in a civilization where there actually were gods that possessed powers our contemporary faux gods can only dream of.
And do dream of. To our mass detriment.
Perhaps they should see this film, also, and consider their own father, or mother, story.
And consider there was a time when a leader went off to war in a skirt instead of skirted the responsibility to do so.
I’m only half-kidding.
Here’s the thing with gods of any kind.
I’m not much for them and their mythical “powers”. Or the belief that they can heal what ails you.
For me, it’s difficult to take the myth of it all seriously. To believe there is some divine arbitrary resurrected personage or energy or all-knowing being that controls things in a certain way in a civilization made of endless, ordinary humans.
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So when the film leans too hard into the supernatural woo-woo it began to lose me in a miasma of junior and senior high school lessons I forever zoned out of and had no interest in.
To this day, I have to consistently look this stuff up every time a student brings a group of these historical deities, who create their own rules and carry all this legacy power to use at their supposedly wide and very subjective discretion, into their stories.
Not to mention, it all seems to divert the responsibility we all have to be our version of divine goodness and the heroes of our own collective stories.
But if a god is what floats your boat, and the actions you take because of it doesn’t involve murdering me or my family, throwing us out of our home or keeping us down in any way, have at it.
Though sadly in Nolan’s world, a perfect metaphor for ours on this subject, this is not the case.
Too many gods spoil the broth. So to speak.
Because when you get into god territory it’s not too easy to tell the imposters from the real thing and the real world.
Better to look inside and learn the lessons from the best father or mother figure you can find.
And not necessarily, the biological kind.
All that said, and if it matters to you, The Odyssey is bound for lots of Oscar gold, especially in its technical categories. Also look for nominations for Christopher Nolan, Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway and perhaps even Sammantha Morton in a very memorable, mid-movie sequence.
As for winners, well Mr. Nolan and all of us have already won because we’ve got an epic movie movie to go to this summer. The kind that it’s well-worth going out of your house to and braving all the vagaries of air, land and water for in these hopefully faux apocalyptic times.
notes from a chair 