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(I’m rethinking the content of my website and it looks rather bare right now. I’ll continue with my reading blog of ancient literature, but will try to add other things. Today, I’m posting a movie review related to the Odyssey. Spellings of Greek names are from Barry Powell’s translation the poem).

The Return, directed by Uberto Pasolini, stars Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche, and is the finest adaptation of Homeric material I’ve ever seen. Though it focuses only on the final episodes of the Odyssey, and even then doesn’t strictly follow events as depicted in the poem, the depth of characterization and treatment of Homer’s themes is profoundly moving and relevant in a world which has always been plagued by war and violence.

The setting of the movie, and the costuming and depiction of an ancient, rural lifestyle are all convincing and seem historically accurate. The palace itself is impressive, a hulking fortress on the cliffs above the sea, and the meagron, or great room, the dark halls, niches, and bedrooms all look primitive and appropriate to the time period. This is not a mythic Troy imagined by Hollywood, or the great palace at Knossos or Mycenae, it’s just a simple island kingdom.

I don’t usually like adaptations because they stray too far from the text and change what I loved and found essential in the original, but here I think the changes are justified. Events from the poem are conflated or reimagined to great dramatic effect. The most obvious change is leaving out all the wanderings of Odysseus before he finally returns home, and I will admit that affects the way we see him. It shifts our perspective away from the proud soldier and storyteller, the crafty liar, the thief and adulterer, and instead shows us the broken, humiliated veteran returning to a home where he is no longer wanted. Yet both versions of Odysseus are true. He is not the same man at the beginning of the Odyssey as he is at its end. 

Another important change is the absence of the gods. There is hardly any reference to them here, either as helpful guides or as nemeses. This makes the story more realistic to modern viewers, but also puts responsibility squarely in the hands of the protagonist, which I think the poem also ultimately does. No one can make excuses for his long delayed return. A Cyclops didn’t eat his men, Poseidon didn’t sink his ship, Calypso didn’t detain him on a hidden island. Odysseus hasn’t find his way home until now because of the blood on his hands. The aftermath of the war haunts his every step. 

The first time we see Odysseus in The Return, he’s washed up on the beach of Ithaca, naked and destitute after the wreck of his ship. In the poem, this is how he lands, not on Ithaca, but on the island of the Phaeacians, where he is welcomed by the inhabitants, clothed, fed, honored, and invited to tell his story — the proper way a traveler is treated in Homeric society. Then they take him to Ithaca and put him ashore with gifts and treasure. In The Return though, he is welcomed home only by the humble pig herder Eumaios (who is much younger and more active in the movie) and by the faithful hound Argos, who welcomes Odysseus with his last breath. Like the hound, the island is dying without its king. Odysseus’ arrival reveals everything he has lost: his home, his family, his people, and his honor.

He is a beggar, just like most of the common people, who are poor and hungry, huddled around the palace hoping for scraps of food from the suitors who are harassing Queen Penelope and consuming the wealth of the island. Odysseus looks into their eyes, and you can feel his shame because their plight is the king’s responsibility, they are his household, his family, and he has deserted them. These are the consequences when the king and the youngest, strongest men go off to win their glory, so we see the anger of Telemachos, Eumaios, and others who think the absent king is a coward.

He is ready to run away rather than face Penelope, but when the suitors come to kill Telemachos, Odysseus is forced into action. In the poem the attempted ambush happens “offstage” and Telemachos is warned away by Athena, but here Odysseus protects his son, and kills the first two men who approach. He is revealed to be no coward, but he loathes the efficient killer he has become. He stares at the blood of the men seeping into the earth, and knows he is bringing war and death home with him. 

Another added scene is the funeral of Odysseus’ father, Laertes. In the poem they are able to reunite after the slaughter of the suitors, reestablishing the social order of the household and the kingdom, but in the movie, Laertes dies first, not knowing his son has returned. Odysseus is only able to speak to him in the tomb, and confesses he bears the guilt of all the soldiers who fought in the war and returned, and those who were fortunate enough to die in battle. But there is no ghost to hear him, as there might be in Homer, and the disruption of family caused by war remains an open wound. The chasm between life and death is what separates him from his wife. 

Penelope is often characterized as the epitome of feminine loyalty, but in the key scene where she confronts Odysseus in the palace, we see how much her loyalty has cost her. She asks the beggar to come closer and tell her what he knows about her husband. There is a long moment where she looks at him across the room in the dim firelight as he turns and tries to hide his face, but we can see she knows him. In the poem he is disguised by Athena and unrecognizable, but here, every conflicting emotion is reflected in Penelope’s expression before she says another word. It’s great acting by Binoche, and the most poignant moment in the film. Should she acknowledge him? Should she welcome him home? He does not want to reveal himself, he is ashamed to look at her and be seen. So she continues to question him about her husband as if he is an unknown soldier, but there is a bitter edge to every query. Because of her loyalty to Odysseus, she has refused the suitors, sacrificing the safety of the kingdom and her son. Why has her husband not returned? When Odysseus says he may have felt lost after the war, she is incredulous. How could a man find his way to war not find his way home again? She asks if her husband raped and murdered the innocent, and in his silence Odysseus admits his guilt. How can she forgive that? Finally, she dismisses him in disdain, as a stranger.

It is telling that in this version, it is Penelope who sets the contest of the bow. Odysseus does not plan it with Telemachos, as in the poem, and it is clear that Penelope is testing Odysseus, not the suitors, to see if he will again take up the responsibility of being husband and king. But he is still reluctant because she doesn’t know the full consequences of war, and the slaughter her contest will unleash. He asks her if this is truly what she wants. She assents, but then turns away in horror at the bloodshed. At the end, she pleads mercy for Antinoös, the leader of the suitors, as he bows his head before the sword of Telemachos, not because she loves him, but because, as he says, he represents the life she might have had, a life of peace. But as the old nurse Eurykleia says, that is no peace! He would have killed all his rivals, including Telemachos. And as Penelope says, she cannot live another life. This is the one she has.

Afterward, Telemachos and the palace have been cleansed, but Odysseus is still covered in blood. Only Penelope can forgive him and cleanse his soul of “so much blood.” He breaks down the door to their bed chamber, which Penelope sealed when he left for war, and there is the marriage bed he made for her, rooted by the trunk of a living tree, growing up through the roof. It’s scarred and twisted, but still alive, like their marriage. She tenderly washes the blood from his face and body, and says they will remember and forget together, forgiving all they cannot know or understand, until they are friends again.

Barry Powell says, “The ‘comic’ Odyssey follows the ‘tragic’ Iliad and is an optimistic counter balance to the earlier poem.” In this classical sense of comedy, I think The Return gives us the only possible answer to the crime and tragedy of war: forgiveness.