aleks

The chromophobia of Westerners and the attachment to the perfect, impeccable, moral, noble hero

I will not duel long on the fact that it has been proven that Greek statues weren’t the marble white we are all familiar with and the resistance of many scholars in admitting this. This resistance stemmed from the familiarity with ancient Greek culture via the works by the renaissance masters, seen as an uninterrupted continuous line with the works of ancient Greeks and Romans whose history was basically adopted as a common western history. Needless to say the history was adopted, not the people. Italians and Greeks weren’t really welcomed with open arms in the west. Greeks still haven’t reached Italians’ level of acceptance, but our culture has been “adopted” (I prefer thinking of it as kidnapped, but whatever) by people like Elon Musk apparently, who took it upon themselves to be absolutely offended on the casting choices not being greek-looking enough, meaning white. I will like to inform all the non-greek people at this point that Elon Musk doesn’t look more Greek than Zendaya for example. I would also like to add that the casting of pretty much everyone was abysmal, but not due to lack of authenticity with Greek ethnicity. And maybe it wasn’t just the casting’s fault, maybe it was just bad directing, but to me, and this, like everything else on this loooong review is absolutely my personal opinion, no one, and I mean absolutely no one looked the part. Not even the freaking dog. Bad acting or bad casting or bad directing I don’t know and it doesn’t matter. I didn’t enjoy any performances.

But mainly this aversion to colour comes from its association with barbarism, with campiness, with bad taste, with, well, joy. I blame austere Christianity for this. Christians really ruined everything.

Nolan’s Odyssey is unsurprisingly devoid of colour. And of light. I cannot comment on the technological aspect of the visual appearance of the film. As our lord and savior Abed Nadir said about his new camera, “It's more expensive but it lets me adjust really specific settings that most people don't notice or think about”. If you are the sort of person that knows of these things and they actually affect the way you enjoy a movie, then more power to you. What I personally mean when I say that I found a movie visually stunning or interesting or compelling, is what I feel or think when the image reaches my brain through my eyes. Is what I feel when I see the vast desert in Lawrence of Arabia (1962), or otherworldly landscapes of Iceland in Godland (2022) (what a waste the trip to Iceland for the underworld scenes by the way, what an awful and pointless waste), the claustrophobia and the agony of the crew you feel while watching Das Boot (1981), the serenity and loneliness during the train scene in Spirited Away (2001), the absolute, gut-wrenching terror you feel watching those soldiers, those poor lonely men landing on the beach during the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan (1998), all those deep, deep human feelings rising in someone’s heart and mind in response of watching something beautiful or terrifying, something extraordinary or almost too great to describe with words. I will not make any more comparisons with other movies, I don’t think it's fair and is maybe a bit pointless. My point was actually that I didn’t feel anything, or, to be more accurate, I felt some discomfort due to all the extremely loud noises and strobe lights especially during the storm scene, but that was a physical response and not an emotional one. It is well known that loud noises and flashing lights can make a person feel discomfort, and hell, for 250 MILLION dollars they could have actually hired people to come in the theater and throw ice water in your face. That makes for an annoying scene, not a compelling one.

The bland colour palette wasn’t a surprise either, and since as I understand is interlinked with Nolan’s colourblindess is perhaps something that there is no point in discussing. The way a person physically understands the world is the way a person physically understands the world, I mean, what can you say? It feels boring and it feels flat and it feels lazy, I mean the bad Greek invaders are in black armor and the innocent Trojans are in white (terrible choice for armor by the way, it would stain so easily). At least in Troy (2004) the Trojans had those fun tie-dye clothes, they where so fun! So edgy! (you said nooo more comparisons), but I guess this is his perception of the world? And it feels like a sad beige mom’s dreamland but what can you do? I guess? Maybe choose a less colourful people than the Greeks? Maybe stay away from the mediterranean sea altogether? Scandinavia may be a good choice? During the long winter nights? Or Antarctica maybe? The penguins are already in black and white?

Nolan’s Odysseus feels like he was written under the Hays code. Odysseus is the perfect paradigm of morality, he is so noble that he even warns the animals he hunts, even when he is starving and is responsible for his starving companions. He is the only one who makes it in the end so he has to be impeccable. Beyond reproach.

However, Odysseus was kind of an asshole really. He was a trickster, a liar, he was cunning and proud and by the way he cheated on his wife, like A LOT, and not because he had amnesia. He didn’t hurt Polyphemus more than he had too because he was upset over his fallen comrades, oh no, he taunted that bastard out of pettiness and pride. He actually revealed his name, which he had cunningly conceal from the cyclops earlier, thus bringing unto him and his comrades the wrath of Poseidon. Like I said, asshole.

The thing is, all these morally ambiguous behaviour, is, well, the whole point. Odysseus is a hero that symbolizes the transition from the Iliad heroes and other older stories, who where strong warriors with brute force looking only for glory on the battlefield to a new kind of hero: one with intellect, with curiosity, who shows caution and strategic genius. Odysseus is not ashamed of that. He is not ashamed he thought of the Trojan Horse. His intellect is what separated him from the other Greek generals, and is what makes him a favourite with Athena, the goddess of wisdom.

The rationalization of everything all the time

“An era of apparent magic”. This is how the movie starts. It’s a warning to us viewers, it let’s us know that Nolan did his best to strip as much of the fantastic and the supernatural out of the movie as he possibly could. The gods are never seen, except as phenomena such as storms that are interpreted for us by the actors as the actions of gods. Even Athena’s presence turns out to possibly be just in Odysseus’s mind, a creation of his guilt-ridden mind, after witnessing the execution of a girl in front of Athena’s statue. Everything has its logical explanation if you look hard enough.

Actually, I could respect this approach if he took it all the way. Humans are alone in the world, there are no gods, no monsters, no magic. There are just life’s hardships, obstacles and misfortunes, often man-made, and we are actually our biggest enemy. The Laestrygonians (if this is what the large tin warriors were) could just have been an unknown far away people defending their land from invaders, the same goes with Polyphemus (whose sideways eye and nose I cannot decide whether is just another nolanesque attempt to “logically” explain why he only had one eye or an attempt for originality in the rendering of one of the most well-known monsters ever. Scylla and Charybdis could just have been treacherous sea. The Lotus Eaters, mashed-up with Calypso’s storyline (by the way that white-and-of-course-blue cheap-ass lotus flower, I mean I can’t even) could have just been an island that some of Odysseus’s men decided to stay at, tired of the war and the sea, deciding to forget about their homes and their families. The way he wrote the story though, feels half-done.

Psycho-analysing a mythical warrior 3000 years too late

Athena, as mentioned earlier, seems to be the manifestation of Odysseus’s guilt (Anne Hathaway saying Odysseus’s was so funny) and Calypso (strong Castaway meets Brooke Shield’s Blue Lagoon vibes) is a nurse/therapist. Even the beige palette of Calypso’s clothes and even her whole island scream 200 dollars/hour therapist. I have no further comments on this, it is too ridiculous to say anything else on the matter.

The butchering of women’s part

Lupita Nyong’o’s comment “So, Homer, how do you feel about the screen time given to these women considering how little you spent with them?” made me think, before seeing the movie, that I’ll probably see more of Penelope, Athena and the rest of the many women of the story than Odysseus himself. Imagine my surprise when not only this didn’t happen, but when I realized that the female characters that did make the cut where so lifeless, so diluted, so disappointing. Penelope nags and complains, when not taunting the shortcomings of her own son (nagging seems to be the favourite way of writers and directors of Hollywood when it comes to how women express themselves in their films) or giving a job interview for the head of Ithaca job opening, Helen snarls her lines to her brute husband and Circe, a powerful goddess and sorceress is portrayed as a man-hating hermit with family issues. So not only are the Odyssey’s women that made the cut portrayed as less than, women from other myths are portrayed as sad and small as well. I’m talking about the raven, Circe’s sister. Circe’s sister, Pasiphae, was a queen and she gave birth to the bloody Minotaur. How she ended up in a bird cage I have no idea.

 Homer didn’t need help including women. If you randomly ask anybody with the very basic knowledge of the epic poem, they’ll probably know more female characters by name than male ones. There is, of course, Penelope, Eurycleia, Athena, Calypso and Circe. But there were also Nausicaa, the courageous Phaeacian princess who finds a stranded Odysseus and while all her friends flee from him she helps him, and is her aid that finally helps Odysseus find his way home. And of course, there is Anticlea, his mother, who was alive when he left for Troy and whom she finds dead in the Underworld, in a heart-breaking scene where she informs Odysseus about the tragic state of things back in Ithaca, and how she died from grief while waiting for him. Odysseus tries three times to embrace his mother, and fails. To me, if you really want to lean on the anti-war narrative, this seems like an important scene. This didn’t make the cut, but opening Troy’s gates for about five minutes, or Antinous listing every. Single. Type. Of weapon falling from the roof were more important story-tellingwise I guess.

The anti-war, PTSD point of view

Another insane choice was omitting the scene in the underworld where Odysseus meets again with Achilles. Achilles, a demi-god and the most celebrated hero of the Greek world, is among the fallen Odysseus sees while in Hades. Achilles says to a surprised Odysseus that he regrets his choice of a glorious life that ended so soon, when he could live a long peaceful life, even though that meant he would be forgotten after his death. My point is, if a creator wants to take a different approach to a well-known story, focus on a specific part of it or take a completely new approach to it I guess they can. But it is a very strange choice to omit those actual parts from the original that corroborate your point of view.

Sailing to the west, to reunite with Gandalf and Bilbo Baggins I guess

The most unhinged choice of all the unhinged choices is the obsession of everyone with the west. Penelope wants to make a run for it in the West. Sinon wants Odysseus to honour the fallen soldiers in the West. Then Odysseus wants to go to the West. Then he and Penelope actually go to the unknown West, and all I could think of was the ending of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. That, and the walking trees (why was that even a thing) reminding me of the Ents I think make two too many similarities with LoTR. I mean what is this, a crossover episode? I have a strong feeling that if the British Museum folks see this will use it as an argument for keeping Greek antiquities. “Odysseus gave them to us, he brought them as offerings when he and Penelope came to the West, the Unknown West”.