Cesar Nugraha

The Odyssey. Saw it in 70 mm IMAX. Thoughts: Some of the aesthetic takes were genius. The Hades scene was incredibly vivid. Agamemnon’s costuming was powerful. Some of the takes were grotesque. The scene where Circe turns Odysseus’s men into pigs was gratuitously revolting. Nolan made Telemachus weak and feckless. Telemachus avoids vengeful bloodshed so he can take the throne at the end, unlike Odysseus who (in Nolan’s retelling) goes into exile with Penelope. This is a deliberate echo of the biblical David (a man of war) and his son Solomon. Only the latter can build God’s temple; David’s hands are too blood-stained. Speaking of the Bible, Nolan’s retelling is partial Christianization of a pagan tale. Odysseus is freighted with moral guilt for violating the ethics of war and breaching something called “Zeus’s law,” which in reality is the Bible’s Golden Rule. Yes, the Greeks had a concept of hospitality, but it was pragmatic and conditional. Nolan elevates it to a kind of fundamental civilizational value, but that’s more Jesus than Homer. Athena functions as a sort of ghostly conscience for Odysseus. Zeus, Poseidon, and Helios are nowhere to be seen, though they’re said to be acting in the background. Nolan’s tale is a mostly disenchanted material world where humans are the primary moral agents and bear the consequences of their own choices. Odysseus’s self-exile at the end is the means for expiating his sin. It's a good movie. The accusations of wokeness are mostly baseless clickbait designed for X. Go see it.