I had tangled expectations going on, not
just because of the hype, but because I’ve always treasured Homer (although I’d
take The Iliad over The Odyssey any day!). I re-read The Odyssey over the past month to ready
myself. That alone was a great gift of the movie coming out.
I felt a bit like I do when viewing a movie
or TV series about the Bible. I know I’ll be jarred and annoyed, with a bit of
an elitist sneer that “the book is way better than the movie.” But this one has
that Christopher Nolan brand, and I knew lots of people would ask me my
assessment of it. And people I know well and whose opinions I respect had
already shared glowing reviews with me.
The costumes, boats, scenery, and buildings
were super well-done. I felt like we were back in the Bronze Age. The dialogue
wasn’t very Bronze-Age-ish or Greek-ish, but no worries. There was some solid
acting, but I’m no judge of such things.
Four people we know sat on the row in front
of us. Several times one would turn to me and say “You’ll get a sermon out of
this, I’m sure!” Probably not. Despite being dazzled by cinematic technique,
and digging a few moments, I was on the whole very disappointed. I’m a fan of
Matt Damon (I mean, “Good Will Hunting”? “Bourne”? – great stuff). But his
Odysseus was brooding, uncertain, pulsating with regrets, and nowhere near as wise,
charming, brilliant, and compelling as Homer’s Odysseus.
Not Damon’s fault! Nolan gave him a script. To
Nolan (who seemed bent in the overall plot of the film to be saying Civilization is crumbling and we’d best do
something before it collapses) I’d say Our
civilization desperately needs heroes. You’re putting one on the big screen,
but he looks decidedly unheroic.
He looks unheroic because of another huge
flaw in the film. One reviewer, Leah Schnelbach, rightly named “the
Disenchanted World of The Odyssey.” In Homer, the gods are everywhere, active,
and due considerable reverence as they push the plot. In Nolan, there are vague
allusions to Poseidon being very angry and hurling some storms – feeding, I
fear, into modern notions that God is not a good blessing but a problem. Athena
appears on most pages of Homer, talking a lot, disguising herself as various
characters, hugely impactful. In Nolan, a woman (I had to guess it was Athena) once
in a while is sitting near Odysseus, more like she’s his therapist instead of
the warrior goddess who wears armor and wields a spear.
Damon as Odysseus hears others speak of the
gods, and his replies reveal he is bent on defying them. I’m okay that this is
inconsistent with Homer, but it’s so very modernistic, isn’t it? There’s a lot
of chatter in the film about “the Law of Zeus,” the Greek tradition of
hospitality as a must. I wish I’d known at the beginning to count how many
times various characters appealed to “the Law of Zeus.” Zeus begins with a z,
and for me the boring repetition of his name left me with a zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Zeus’s Law is utterly unsuccessful as a plot
driver, and I’m sure Homer would say hospitality doesn’t come into play when
city states are attacking one another or when someone’s stealing from your
home. Homer’s Zeus wasn’t the author of a Miss Manners book of how to welcome
strangers. Zeus was the king of the gods, a harsh enforcer of justice, and a
philanderer.
But my biggest complaint about the film is
that it is flat out TOO LONG. It wasn’t the 3 hours; many of my favorite movies
(“The Lord of the Rings”? “The Godfather”? “Dr. Zhivago”? “Ben Hur”? Even the
biblical “Ten Commandments”?) are 3+ hours long. It’s a absurdly lengthy fight
scenes. Yes, Homer’s Odyssey had violence.
But Nolan fed into what must be the public’s taste for lengthy depictions of
men stabbing, smashing, hurling, swinging, on and on, on and on, so boring. You
could easily understand that in the plot there was a fight in just a minute or
two. I wish I’d timed Nolan’s brawls.
So what is it about our culture that digs
extended and savage combat scenes? Homer was far more high-minded, reporting on
fighting, but leaving us with a feel of nobility, personal tragedy, victory and
sorrow. I should have seized on the beginning of any fight scene and gone to
the bathroom or the snack bar. Boring, and troubling. I told my wife as we drove
to dinner that I have a lone exception to my loathing of these monotonous
scenes. In “The Lord of the Rings,” we have some extended battles. But there’s
movement, real shifts in dynamics, and the unlikely hero pops up now and then (Eowen?
Merry and Pippin?). And humor: in the thick of peril, Legolas and Gimli taunt
one another as they count how many orcs they’ve dispatched. It’s funny, and
defuses the violence.
Okay, this review needn’t ramble on as long as
Nolan’s film. I’m glad I saw it. Sort of.
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