When you’re watching The Odyssey, be prepared for three hours with no intermission and zero toilet breaks.
The Odyssey is Greek mythology with a cast so stacked with big names it almost feels like a boast, a way to show off.
The Odyssey, directed by Christopher Nolan, is colossal scale filmmaking, a throwback to the epic pictures of the late 1950s and ’60s including The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur, Spartacus, Lawrence of Arabia, Dr. Zhivago, How the West Was Won, West Side Story, 2001: A Space Odyssey… all with an intermission.
It was shot in 70mm IMAX, raw footage over 640,000 metres exposed over the 91-day shoot.
The showprint in the cinema is 17 to 18 kilometres long and weighs 250 to 272 kilograms.
There is only one 70mm IMAX venue in the southern hemisphere, located in Melbourne; settle for a local cinema with traditional digital projection as Melbourne’s IMAX is booked out until mid-September.
You’ll see Nolan’s masterpiece as near possible to his intention.
The Odyssey is Homer’s ancient Greek epic poem about Odysseus (Matt Damon), his 10-year journey to get home to Ithaca after warring 10 years in the Trojan War, and his fight to save his family.
Odysseus’ wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway) says to her husband before he departs for war, “Promise me you will come back.”
Odysseus replies, “What if I can’t?”
Penelope spins, weaves and screams while innumerable suitors hang around the palace awaiting her decision to marry, and to whom.
Antinous (Robert Pattinson) plots to become husband of Penelope and thus king of Ithaca.
Son Telemachus (Tom Holland) launches the opening narrative, undergoes a vital coming-of-age transformation, and stands as a key ally to his father upon his return.
Telemachus (literally Far-fighter) is an essential structural piece in a story of reclaiming household and power rather than a mere side character.
For nearly 3000 years The Odyssey has reigned as literature’s ultimate road trip.
Rowing the 100 tonne wooden ship for months took a training camp of half-stuntmen, half-cast learning to oar the period ship.
If an oar was dropped at sea, it jammed the rower in the chest picking him up, and ejecting that stuntman into the brine.
The ship journeys to various lands of fantasy.
Back in the ’50s and ’60s versions of The Odyssey and related stories were made and released for matinees mainly attracting a target audience of children and teenagers.
Christopher Nolan brings a full-blown adult experience.
Dynamation by Ray Harryhausen, long before the days of CGI and motion capture, movie monsters were sculpted by hand and brought to life via stop-motion animation.
The technique isn’t found in Nolan’s film, nor is CGI or motion capture.
If a scene called for 1000 extras, 1000 extras were hired to fill the screen.
Nolan’s belief in practical visual effects leads to a terrifying Cyclops (Bill Irwin) sequence, the most unique, unsettling this reviewer has ever encountered.
Unplanned anchor drops with Calypso (Charlize Theron) and Circe (Samantha Morton) also prove wildly unnerving.
Even the Trojan Horse is special from anything audiences have seen before on screen.
Credit to Ludwig Göransson, three-time Oscar winner, for his raw, earthy, bleak score using instruments of the era; the aulos (or diaulos when paired), a double- reed double-barrelled woodwind more closely related to the oboe or bagpipe.
Don’t expect to hum any theme on the way home.
People today need to read the big ancient books or see Nolan’s movie, especially in our changing world of today. It resonates. People know this story, but haven’t seen it as Nolan shows it.
Movie: The Odyssey
Duration: 172 min
Director: Christopher Nolan
Starring: Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, Zendaya, Charlize Theron, Lupita Nyong’o, Samantha Morton, Bill Irwin
Rating: *****
Reviewed by Lawrenty
