The other day we went to see the new «Odyssey». The release in Russia is unofficial, sanctions-schmanctions, the ticket says a different movie title, but they show it all the same. At first I thought it would be a cam rip, but then I realized it wasn't a recording, since real people kept walking back and forth during the film.
Below are some details that could be considered spoilers. So if you don't know what this Odyssey is about but would like to find out on your own first, maybe better not to read on just yet.
What can I say. The movie is good. Overall the whole world liked it a lot, and so did I. Odysseus' adventures were trimmed in detail somewhat, of course, that's understandable, otherwise you'd have to make a TV series. But the main milestones are there, at the cost of only some of the details. The Cyclops, the Laestrygonians, the witch, Calypso, Hades, Scylla and Charybdis are all in place and in satisfying amounts (although Scylla could have been drawn better).
I was a bit puzzled why the Laestrygonians were put in full metal armor, but maybe it's so you don't confuse them with the Cyclopes. Agamemnon puzzled me too — he's always shown from behind, a head taller than everyone else and in shadow. A huge gloomy demon of war that descended into the movie from the pages of some comic book. It's unclear why he's like that, maybe to reveal the author's idea, but then he should have been shown more.
But these are all trifles, of course. What can be said overall — director Nolan shot «The Odyssey» in a very modern way. And I don't mean the mixed cast everyone complained about. You barely notice it, by the way: well, Helen doesn't look much like Diane Kruger, so what. What I mean is that the director gave Odysseus a modern, humanistic mind. Throughout the movie the hero grieves not for his comrades who fell in the war, not for his crew, whom he himself doomed to wandering and death with his vanity. And, generally speaking, not even so much for Telemachus, Penelope and Ithaca.
Odysseus grieves and suffers over the ravaged Troy. That they beat and killed everyone there way too hard, should have gone softer somehow. And they cheated with that horse too, totally not cool. And that's why he's now ashamed to come home and look his wife in the eye. Who apparently also has a modern mind and would surely be ashamed of such a disgraceful cutthroat.
This dose of humanism seemed a bit odd to me. It isn't fitting for an ancient warlord, a vain one at that, to suffer over a plundered enemy city. Because in his ancient worldview that's the expected and legitimate goal of war: achieve it and you'll cover yourself in martial glory. Not in humanitarian soul-searching.
But the movie, I repeat, is good. Because it's well made, and the authors expressed their idea in an interesting and skillful way. Because if you don't come up with new readings of a source that's almost three thousand years old, then what's the point of it all?
By the way, I have my own reading too :)