Pride cometh before a fall
The vain, their conceit, go under.
Yet the arrogance of men, all,
Will tear the world asunder
--- Shilliam Wakespeare
Back in the days when the written word didn’t exist, stories were told orally as songs that would be shared at gatherings. In more innocent times, when the colour grey wasn’t yet invented, the tales were always about good versus evil. The heroes (and the villains) may have been of flesh and blood, but the songs would portray them as much more. And with each re-telling myths would grow and truths would fade.
The Odyssey is widely considered to be the earliest existing adventure story in the Western world. The Iliad is said to have been written earlier, but the Odyssey covers a much larger time period. Plus, it has more gods and monsters, I think! Odyssey is less about the war and more about Odysseus’ return home. Where do you think the word ‘odyssey’ came from?
A still from The Odyssey
Christopher Nolan did the impossible with Oppenheimer. He created a thriller out of the making and exploding of the nuclear bomb. Now, he turns to one of the most famous stories in the planet. Obviously, he is not going for a faithful retelling. But how will he tell it? The answer is surprising in unexpected ways.
Start synopsis. Odysseus is the king of Ithaca, an island in ancient Greek. Agamemnon, leader of Greeks set sail to wage war on Troy and Odysseus goes with him. The war lasts for 10 years and the Greeks emerge victorious. But it has been 10 more years and Odysseus is not yet home. His wife Penelope waits for him. But a kingdom without a king is a dangerous situation, and, hence, a bevy of suitors are always at the Ithaca palace trying to get Penelope to marry one of them. As per the law of Zeus, hosts should offer food and shelter to strangers. So, she has to suffer them in silence day after day.
Odysseus starts on his long and arduous odyssey back to Penelope. But the journey is full of danger. Sirens who lure sailors to their death with their songs, gigantic one-eyed cyclops who rear sheep and eat soldiers, deadly whirlpools and mysterious women with amnesiac drugs. Add in a bunch of gods and goddesses who are more vengeful than humans can even perceive, and you have an obstacle race for the ages. But after 10 years, Odysseus returns to save his wife from the suitors. End Synopsis.
I had not read the Odyssey in any form before I saw the movie. But like most people who read books, I knew parts of the myth. The influence of the epic cannot be understated. Nolan was never going to tell the story exactly as it was. But the shock lay in finding out just how much of the fantastic fantasy he was able to include.
The story of the Odyssey can be encapsulated in two words – Returning Home. It is that aspect that connected it with people far and wide. A core feeling that resonates across humanity. The movie Odyssey is primarily plotted around that. However, Nolan shows us that it is not what attracted him to the story. His interpretation is more about honour, about the fickleness of rules, about how easily society, and the civilization it has built, can crumble.
Through a tale of kings and their descendants, Nolan shows us the fragility of democracy and the rules that supposedly differentiate us from animals. For a director with such an eclectic body of work, a re-telling of a tale from thousands of years ago turns out to be his most timely movie yet.
Christopher Nolan is one of the directors who can have any actor ready to drop everything else. He is able to coax incredible performances out of them. The Odyssey is no different. Many of the names have, but, short cameos. But they are all powerful.
Matt Damon in The Odyssey
At the heart of Odyssey are three actors who have put forth some of their best performances ever. Anne Hathaway, who is a Nolan muse, shows us how good an actress she is underneath the leading lady roles that she does so effortlessly. It is also probably the first time she has had to put on makeup to make her look older. While she is mostly hidden behind curtains and screens, when it comes time for her to let loose, she throws caution to the winds.
Robert Pattinson will (probably) never get his due. The haters can’t get over the success he had with the Twilight movies. He became Batman after that. Come on, how much luck does one have in a life, if your name is not Harrison Ford? People tend to forget the impressive body of small independent movies and arthouse fare that he has done over the years. As Antinous, the closest to a villain the movie has, Pattinson shows us a sleazy character with a surprising amount of decency. In the scenes between him and Hathaway, the comic nerd in me could barely stop shouting out “Batman and Catwoman together”!
With Oppenheimer, the story was all about long-time Nolan supporting actor Cillian Murphy finally getting his due and Ironman Robert Downey Jr riding a decidedly non-heroic turn all the way to the Oscars. But one of the performances that got the short drift was Matt Damon’s General Groves, who was content to let the spotlight go to the other players.
Damon is front and centre here. Yet, he isn’t. Rather than show us an all-conquering hero or a deeply-troubled soul, we see a man. And that is one of the things that makes the character of Odysseus so memorable; just how devoid of showboating Damon plays him. You can’t see a leading man anywhere. You see a tired man, who just wants to go home. Matt Damon was always the reluctant star. But here you see how good an actor he is. We almost believe that Odysseus is one like us.
For all the rabble-rousing by the rabid right-wing, you cannot deny how Christopher Nolan was able to make a colour-blind movie. Odysseus’ right-hand man Eurylochus is played by Himesh Patel, Odysseus’ servant and goatherd is enacted by the always wise-cracking John Leguizamo, Zendaya is the Goddess Athena and Lupita Nyong’o is Helen of Troy. Yet you don’t think stunt casting or diversity requirements. You just see actors in roles.
A special call-out has to go to the child actors in some of the flashbacks. If no CGI has been involved, then the casting directors did a fabulous job getting really close lookalikes of the actors whose childhood they were portraying.
With one of the biggest budgets ever, Nolan went to shoot his version of an adventure story. Thing is, it turned out nothing like that. The first half could be in an art film; there are zero money shots or wow moments. The second half picks up the pace, but it does not give you the thrill you were hoping for.
The Odyssey is a meditative movie. It is Chris Nolan doing what he wants to. And he is too good an auteur to make a half-hearted film. But this is dangerous territory. With ticket prices ballooning, more and more of the audiences would prefer to wait it out for the TV or OTT release, which is the antithesis of Nolan’s filmmaking mantra. I can’t help thinking this is the beginning of the slowdown of a juggernaut. Shame, because The Odyssey is in a class of its own.
