Aurélie

one star for Elliot Page and Lupita Nyong’o each. People who are offended or outraged are one thing : hateful racist and transphobic pieces of shite. I don’t wanna hear anymore of those people caring about ‘historical accuracy’, as if there are no trans people and black people in Greek mythology.. off the top of my head hello Tiresias, Caenus and Memnon.  Speaking of historical accuracy these Roman inspired helmets, together with those Viking boats were actually something I found distracting.. I went into this movie with a bit of a mixed feeling. Christopher Nolan has never been a director/writer I was particularly fond of, because I often find his films to be rather “steril”, lacking personality. Yet I wanted to give this a chance. But in this film again he finds himself immersed only in the spectacle of this epic. The fantasy, the deeply flawed and complex character of Odysseus, THE POETRY, of the original text are nowhere to be found.  Merging together different chapters of such a large work is to be expected in a film adaption that wants to stay near the original plot. Yet merging together the chapter in Odysseus travels of the lotus people with his time with Calypso didn’t sit right with me, especially since this Calypso seems to partly really want him to remember his past adventures. It also takes away some of the weight of the dilemma he faces while on Calypso's island of eternal comfort or taking responsibility for his actions, leading to amendments and then the chance to get actual fulfilment, because he has less agency. The whole picture felt blurred and pointless to me. The dominating grey tones, the flashbacks as the only way to try to make us understand what our characters are feeling at a given moment, Zendaya’s Athena that just like Matt Damon’s Odysseus shows no cunningness, but just nods and disappointingly looks at him… All of this makes me ask myself why did Christopher Nolan want to tackle the Odyssey? He gave the story no new point of view, didn’t seem particularly interested in any of the chapters of Odysseus adventures, except the destruction of Troy.  Anyways I’m happy if the film makes people interested to visit or revisit the source material and more Ancient myths or texts. Else ehh let’s just stick with Pasolini for Ancient Greek mythology film adaptations.