Just watched two adaptations of the Odyssey to soothe myself from the usual mess coming from both Hollywood and the Internet. The first one is the 1968 Italian miniseries L'Odissea by Sergio Rossi, second one is the 1997 miniseries The Odyssey starring Armand Assante.
The first one is so immersive. It's deeply grounded in archaic Mediterranean visuals and the culture where the poem comes from. You really get the dicothomy of this world, with rigid human codes of honor on one part and a supernatural setting mysterious as the will of unreliable, invisible, yet overly invested gods.
The visual aspect is amazing. While the costumes may not be necessarily accurate, there's a perfect balance between a 60's fantasy flavour and Archaic Greek clothes. Penelope was given a replica of a real pair of mycenean earrings and Menelaos was first shown while testing his golden death mask!
There's a beautiful contrast between the solemn, almost theatrical acting and the way everything is grounded in realness. The actors get dirty, wet, sweaty all the time, even royal palaces are carved in raw stone; the locations, such as villages and islands, are real places. Every piece of fabric, every animal, food and object in the ship makes you feel you could touch it. Ghibli-style but in a more rough, look-how-hard-their-life-is way. In cities, there's servants and ordinary people on screen all the time doing their work, and that convinces you you are in a real world, despite it being a myth.
Also look how insanely gorgeous the actresses were:
The second one has a completely different flavor. Here we don't see epic characters but humans living in a supernatural world with gods who also are very humanized and treated not that seriously. Like, the first interaction between Odysseus and Athena (Isabella Rossellini) is very informal, he even laughs in response to what she says. Not to mention they also seem low-key flirty? But maybe that's just my naperfyxated ass who can't help but see my favorite Napoleon and Josephine on TV❤️
The crew is adorable, which I liked very much as it makes the loss of them much harder. And there's plenty of funny moments, much more realistic acting and lighter athmospheres. For example, the Poliphemos' episode from the 1968 miniseries is traumatizing than in the 1997 one, despite it being much less graphic.
The fact that the athmosphere is much less dramatic doesn't take away the thrill of adventure, the stake of reaching back a home and the awe for a mysterious world.
This miniseries looks gave me the same vibes as Pirates of the Caribbean: it gave me the same combination of fun, fantasy, adventure and myths everyone takes seriously. I headcanon that it all occurs in the same universe.
