ella bo bella

There's nothing left for him. His daughter. He wasn't her father, either. She loves him. She'll survive. She's young. I don't want you to die. Don't kill him. Let him live. Let him live. Don't kill him.

- Why are you killing everybody? Why are you making everybody die? - It's my story. - Mine, too. THE FALL (2006, dir. Tarsem Singh)

it is our differences which make us dearer to one another

it is never too late to start loving

the enemy is not the foreigner, but the ones who tell you to hate the foreigner

everyone should have food, shelter, and work

everything is a yin and yang metaphor if you try hard enough

When Helen was of age to be married, all the Lords of Greece came to seek her hand. This was an issue for her stepfather the King of Sparta who could only pick one husband and then would have to deal with the far greater number of angry rejected suitors.

One suitor was Odysseus, then a younger man. He quickly ascertained that he had no chance of marrying Helen. Ithaca was too poor for him to even bring any proper gifts, let alone a dowry. But he did catch the eye of the King's niece, one Penelope.

Now Penelope was still a bit out of Odysseus' league, but not so much as Helen was. So he makes a deal with the King of Sparta. Support my bid to marry Penelope, and I'll give you a solution to this suitors problem. The King agrees, so Odysseus suggests all the suitors swear an oath to defend Helen's marriage from anyone who might strike against it. They all, including Odysseus, so swear, and Helen is married to Menelaus. The King proves as good as his word, and Penelope is wed to Odysseus.

Of course this means that Odysseus has now bound himself to fight for Helen and Menelaus. After an attempt to feign madness he is forced to fulfill his duty.

personally i have stopped caring about the movie itself in terms of whether it's a "good" version of the odyssey. there are things i have heard about it that i think are kind of dumb choices to make but i also like my odysseus to suck bigly and unrepentenly and tbh the version of odysseus in my head is not a very homeric one at all! it's more informed by things like the philoctetes and the aeneid because i personally find those depictions more interesting. there are also things i've heard that intrigue me but i refuse to pay money to see this movie

what i find is more important to focus on is the conversations about things like the treatment of shooting locations or the fucking iranian artifacts turned into jewlery for an american actress to wear while the us is actively waging war against iran. just as any ancient telling of odysseus's story, the nolan odyssey does not exist in a vacuum. i'm sure there are interesting things to analyze in the movie as a story but personally the issue that concerns me more is the analysis of this movie as a way for the classics to once again be interpreted and used by someone from a powerful colonizing nation for entertainment while actively appropriating aspects of other cultures. like it feels like heavy handed satire at this point except it's real. if we're going to give this movie critical attention i just think this is more important to think about than whether the movie is "good"