G, Fred, and I drove up last Friday, scoring 3 seats together in the second row. Not ideal, but Friday was the only day we could go. Shows are selling out so much that they’re adding 2 AM and 6 AM shows. Our show was at 11:40 AM.
I fully expected to leave with a neck ache after staring up at a 5-story-high screen into Odysseus’s nostrils for three hours. But even though we were ridiculously close, it wasn’t bad.
I didn’t know this at the time, but there are only 25 theaters in the entire US that have the rare equipment needed to show the film in IMAX 70mm.
If you want, check here to see if there’s one near you:
https://www.statspanda.com/blog/the-odyssey-imax-70mm-theaters
I live 2 hours from the Rochester, NY one.
Now that I’ve seen it, here’s what I’d tell anyone who wants to go:
Number 1.
Go with the right people. This is not a movie to go to with people who have no clue what this story is about—people who have never referenced a Trojan horse, or described themselves as caught between Scylla and Charybdis, or imagined themselves tied to a mast to resist temptation.
At the very least, make sure your friends have Wikipedia-ed the basic plot.
As we were walking into the theater, Fred said, “What’s this movie about, basically?
Ideally, go with someone who has read it, even if they read it a long time ago. Go with someone who has already “seen” this movie in their imaginations, someone who has seen Penelope at her loom, negotiated Scylla and Charybdis, run from the Cyclops.
The thrill for me, who had already “seen” these things in my imagination, was to see them come to life on the screen. For me, this movie was so much better than what I had concocted in my own imagination, by like, a thousand-fold. And that is almost NEVER the case for me with books and movies. The movie is always, or mostly, a disappointment. Not this one.
Afterward, I wanted to talk about it. I wanted to compare notes with another person who had already experienced it in their imagination.
Neither G nor Fred had read it. As we were standing in the lobby afterward, me, gobsmacked, I asked Fred what he thought.
He thought it was all right, basically a Jason Bourne movie (apparently Matt Damon plays Jason Bourne in a series of action-adventure movies)
I felt a kind of shock. I also felt disappointed in a crestfallen kind of way. I said nothing.
It is totally okay to not agree or feel the same way about a movie like The Odyssey with someone, but not with someone who doesn’t recognize that all the ubiquitous cultural references to siren songs, Trojan horses, or feeling caught between Scylla and Charybdis come from this epic poem.
Number 2.
Do a brief refresh of the plot line. Even though I read it in college and again when the Emily Wilson translation came out in 2017, I had forgotten much of it. Like, why did he need to sack Troy? Just because Helen cheated on Menelaus with Paris? How could adultery cause all this violence and slaughter?
But when I checked when I got home, yup, that was it.
Man, it was so violent. It was also so fucking loud. At moments, I thought to myself: “This is a boy’s movie. This is the kind of violence boys like to watch: people’s heads getting lopped off, people being impaled on swords.”
I really hate those kinds of movies.
But that being said, it was the sacking of Troy that revealed Odysseus’s character.
Odyseus, as it turns out, is no hero. He’s not noble. He’s a piece of shit, really. I felt sorry for him only when I recognized he had PTSD. What he did to Troy ruined him. But not enough. I found him more pathetic than heroic.
Number 3.
Don’t get distracted by the reviews. It’s a movie, for cryin’ out loud.
The whole flap doodle with Emily Wilson is boring to me. Yeah, he (Nolan) took tons of liberties with her translation. Yeah, he got a lot “wrong.” Yeah, his portrayal of Circe was stingy and narrow, but he got so much right.
It was a masterpiece of cinematic art. He didn’t use CGI. It was shot on film. It wasn’t a book. It was a movie. And a fucking masterful one.
The casting was brilliant, IMHO.
Ever since I saw it last Friday, it’s all I can think about, but not in some ruminative, intellectual way. I see scenes: Calypso on the beach, Odysseus surrendering to the sea in a raft, Circe saying, “Return to your disguises” as she turns the pigs back to men. The dog Argus and his tail. Penelope telling Telemachus that she deserved the throne! (Damn straight she did!) The scene inside the horse. The whirlpool, the dead rising from the black dirt.
So many scenes! They emerge in my dreams and I entertain them. I want to think about them.
I want to see it again, and I’m going to, on September 2nd. This time I’m going with Ira, who is reading it now (he’s more an Iliad fan. I don’t think he’s read The Odyssey.)
I’m also rereading the Wilson translation again. Not to compare the book to the movie, but for the pure pleasure of it.
Lots of commentators, whether they love the movie or not, are all agreeing that its emphasis on The Law of Zeus, which is to welcome the stranger, is what our society needs to focus on right now.
Also, if this movie makes people curious to read this epic poem, that is amazing.
If you can see it, I think you should. If it makes you want to read it, even better.
Five stars.
Inspiration Location 