blip

the most jarring movie i think i’ve ever watched

i love tobey’s silly faces

willem da fucking goat

what an interesting film. i’ve seen a lot of discourse about this movie including the historical inaccuracies, misinterpretations of the text, the costume designs, and of course the reception once it came out, before having seen the movie. now that i’ve gotten some time to think about it after seeing it last night and reading and seeing other people’s takes and critiques on it, i have complicated feelings. i think there’s a lot of things that i like and things that i dont. i also haven’t read the odyssey since middle school so i barely remember anything so i cant give fair criticisms when it comes to the accuracy of the story. my criticisms for the movie are ones that come across almost every nolan movie. one is the audio, like holy shit bruh this man needs to find someone who can properly mix and master this audio like why is that my ears are constantly being assaulted 😭. also chris could you maybe turn up the score a little more, i can almost hear matt damon monologuing. like i didn’t know the cyclops was actually saying something cause the audio was so distorted. two, i agree with the claim that nolan can’t properly write female characters, especially in this movie besides penelope who i actually think has some good depth to her played super well by anne hathaway. besides that, all the female characters pretty much serve as plot devices to drive odysseus’ arc rather than actual characters especially calypso and athena. i do believe that the writing in general is weak and a lot of the character nuances are stripped away in exchange for a great spectacle. however, when it comes to everything else regarding the movie, i loved it. the direction, the cinematography, the set pieces, the action, the score, everything about this movie on a purely filmmaking aspect succeeds tremendously (besides the audio mixing). ludwig goransson always delivers and it truly is wonderful to see this story get adapted in a way that is so visually stunning. and i do appreciate what nolan does in terms of adapting and interpreting the odyssey in his lens, focusing on odysseus’ guilt of the men he has killed and the violation of zeus law through his idea of the trojan horse, his greatest and most ingenious victory now made his own personal tragedy, also by the way, why did they say “zeus law” like 100 times in the movie like i GET it, it does not to be clarified this many times. i really enjoyed how athena’s ghostly presence is recontextualized as a trojan woman beheaded in front of odysseus and serves as a reminder of what he’s done and the conversion of whether that is odysseus’ choice to view her that way or that is the way athena chooses to represent herself in front of odysseus. although i’m a bit disappointed that nolan doesn’t actually stick with this idea as nearly as he should because odysseus just gets a happy ending in the end. i’ve seen people either say this is the greatest film they’ve seen or be incredibly disappointed with how this story was handled and both of these reactions are completely valid, and both arguments for and against the movie to be interesting and engaging (except for the losers who kept whining about the fact that nonwhite people and a trans actor was casted) and it’s what i ultimately love about pieces of art like this: the conversations and discussions that show that we are still invested in art, in stories that mean something to us, and our ability to feel and recognize what we love and what we don’t and articulating that, especially in a time where AI is becoming more prevalent and removing our modes of thinking. out of all of christopher nolan’s films, this is the first that has made me hungry for another rewatch. and most importantly it makes me want to go back and reread the original story. also where tf was mr peabody and sherman?