The Odyssey
August 14 – 20
August 14 – 20
Hey look! MORE Matinées!
Fri Aug 14 – 1:30 & 7:00 pm
Sat Aug 15 – 1:30 & 7:00 pm
Sun Aug 16 – 1:30 & 7:00 pm
Mon Aug 17 – 7:00 pm
Tues Aug 18 – 7:00 pm
Wed Aug 19 – 1:30 pm ONLY
Thurs Aug 20 – 1:30 & 7:00 pm LAST SHOW
Rated 14A – 2hr 53min
Adventure / Action / Fantasy
Following the Thursday August 20 1:30pm screening:
Dr. Toph Marshall, Professor of Greek at UBC, will lead a discussion about the film. His research and teaching at UBC focuses on Greek literature, with a particular interest in the adaptation of Greek literature in modern popular culture. For his thoughts on the film, visit: https://www.instagram.com/p/
A genuinely grand, gutsy vision, The Odyssey thrills generously for the bulk of its near three-hour running time: Every few minutes, it seems, it throws at its audience another mighty setpiece that, in almost any other summer studio spectacle, would be a climactic standout. If the language of Homer’s epic has been simplified and modernized in Nolan’s screenplay, the stakes and scale of its storytelling have suffered little corner-cutting: It’s so very big, in terms of mythological scope and human consequence, not to mention the sheer volume of incident stuffed into it, as to remind us why other, less intrepid filmmakers have stayed away.
Odysseus, king of Ithaca, embarks on a perilous journey to return home after the Trojan War. Crossing the Mediterranean Sea with his fellow soldiers, they soon find themselves battling not only the elements, but an array of deadly obstacles and mythical creatures along the way. Nolan, who adapted the script, takes liberties, but they’re in the name of simultaneously expanding and uniting various accounts of Odysseus’ deeds in service of a larger, more elusive goal.
In its heart, The Odyssey is still about a legendary warrior and king of Ithaca, beloved husband to his wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway), who dutifully waits for him to return while piggish suitors eat her food, drink her wine, and “corrupt” her servants, hoping she’ll finally give in, pick one of them, and remarry. Odysseus is a caring father to his son Telemachus (played as an adult by Tom Holland). His subjects love him, or so we’re told. The film recounts how he and his troops left Ithaca to fight in the Trojan War, got stuck in that quagmire for ten years, and wandered another decade for reasons that could be his fault, the results of the Gods’ whims, or some mix.
The Odyssey impresses most at its most nakedly, viscerally spectacular — those scenes in its episodic shuffle that showcase the lurid showman in Nolan above all. The near-capture of Odysseus’ army by the giant cyclops Polyphemus (somehow played, with brain-melting digital assistance, by Bill Irwin) is realized with riotous, shrieking monster-movie gusto, only slightly tempered by an aftertaste of compassion for the beast. Another extended sequence of surreal peril, as the men fall under the literal spell of predatory enchantress Circe, is as strange and darkly, hilariously sensual as anything Nolan has ever directed.
Technically, as you’d expect from this director, the movie is mightily impressive, for its scale, the graceful way it moves from one time period to another, and for the tactility of its imagery. You can almost smell the sea, the congealing blood, the flowers. That metal horse clearly weighs a lot—and it looks as if the Trojans (and the actors portraying them) have to strain to transport it. In one of Odysseus’ war flashbacks, a burning building, perhaps thirty meters high, collapses as stunt performers run or take cover; we can sense the heat and weight of the impact, just as we can when watching footage from real 21st-century war zones.
The result is a gigantic, shimmering mirage, a mysterious three-hour vision of crazy episodes that does not yield up wisdom or contentment, but only a grim resolution to continue with the fight, to make sense of ruined lives, to re-enter the scorched battlefield of loss.
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