So, was it worth driving an hour there and back to see The Odyssey on the big screen?
Yes. A definite yes.
I thoroughly enjoyed this Christopher Nolan version of Homer’s epic, with its monster-laden voyage to mythical Ithaka led by a grizzled Matt Damon.
When I read The Odyssey many moons ago, I really felt that yearning for home, the pull of place. However, in the film, Odysseus is reluctant to return, his battle scars heavy and his guilt at the decisions he has made pulling at his internal heart strings.
Classicists will point out deviations from the original poem but you wouldn’t know if you hadn’t read it. And it’s a film, which has a totally different way of telling a story.
Personally, I felt sorry for poor old Corfu in that the hero’s penultimate destination and the delightful Princess Nausikaa don’t put in an appearance.
Scheria, the home of the seafaring Phaeacians, is widely thought to have been Corfu and the Ionian island makes no secret of this connection with one of the greatest stories ever told.
So Corfu won’t benefit from the film at all, while tiny, rocky, inaccessible Ithaka must be preparing itself for an influx of movie fans.
There are many five stars reviews of The Odyssey and discussions over the peripheral role of women in the movie. I’m giving it four because nothing is perfect.
I take on board the complaints about the subordinate depiction of the female sex in the film and jettisoning some of Homer’s nuance, but it was ever thus.
If you went looking for a feminist angle in Nolan’s film then you’d be looking in the wrong place. However, I adored Samantha Morton’s portrayal of Circe and the way she dealt with Odysseus’s greedy crew. I won’t spoil it but the scene is a satisfying shocker.
While the women in the film don’t actually do very much, I did get the overriding sense of male selfishness, power and the endless search for dominance through senseless war, which hasn’t changed since ancient times.
There were a couple of wincing moments for me, such as Odysseus’s son talking about ‘my dad’ and the Laestrygonians emerging through the tall trees in the forest in a scene worthy of Monty Python and The Holy Grail and the Knights who say Ni.
But, all in all, The Odyssey is a story well told, both visually and orally, with the poem’s episodic scenes all working seamlessly from the outset, with Odysseus telling the tale of his voyage to Calypso until he is finally ready to leave her island after seven long years.
And despite the film lasting nearly three hours, the time just romped by.
If you do go and see it, let me know what you think.
Maddie Grigg 