🎬 The Oddisey

I enjoyed Nolan’s production of The Odyssey.

I appreciated the storytelling: how different parts of the journey are cohesively woven into a single story. It has, in this regard, everything Villeneuve’s Dune lacked. The story builds towards a convincing final resolution.

The storytelling remains straightforward, without being trivial. The timeline has a few jumps but you don’t need any mental jujitsu to keep up: just sit back and enjoy the show. There’s not much character depth, but that’s okay.

I enjoyed the sense of being adrift, of losing track of time and space. “How long have I been here?” I liked the idea of sailing with neither compass nor map, trusting the gods to take us where we’re going. I liked the sense of wonder: how the different islands, and the sea itself, are full of magic, full of unknown perils. The movie conveys this well.

I also liked the feeling of darkness, the suspense, the unknown. The world is a dangerous place. The movie sucks you in from the beginning.

The photography is stunning.

While timely, I found the anti-war message —civilization rests upon a few basic rules about trust among humans— a bit cliché.

I have mixed feelings about the music. Most parts were good. The song of the sirens, for example, was very well done. However, I found some parts a bit noisy (e.g., electronic “laser” sounds in Hades), distracting from the film rather than contributing to it.

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