Odyssey - (2026) First Reaction
THE ODYSSEY SPOILERS AHEAD
This is a great moment for cinema
The Odyssey took the idea of why we need to trust God and filtered it through a movie about the trials and tribulations that come with man’s desire to be wiser than God. The gods always find a way to punish us, there is always risk. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take risks. It means that we don’t have control over our ultimate fate, it is sealed by the powers that control the heavens.
Not one of Odysseus cunning tricks actually accomplishes the goal of getting his men home safely. They solve the puzzles but the love of his own cunning causes those wins to suddenly turn into defeats or sudden turns of fate.
The concept of Zeus Law is brought up many times in the film, this refers to the bond that unites all men, their good will and homily; in Odysseus case it is to treat every guest as if they could be a God. The usage of the Trojan horse, a gift, as the trap that defeats the great walls of Troy leads to what Odysseus calls the destruction of the bonds that unite all men.
Yet, in Odysseus case, his self-condemnation, is never reflected by the myriad others who violate Zeus’ law, they can violate the law of good hospitality because they also are God’s, or have godlike powers it seems. Circe, a powerful witch that Odysseus doesn’t seem to outwit so much as coerce under pressure (Which took some astute observation I’ll give) has the graveyard of military armor on her back porch to attest to the violation of hospitality that marks her normal behavior. These violations of the main god’s law don’t ease Odysseus own guilt at his belief that he destroyed the heart of his age (the bustling Troy and it’s great walls), acting as one of the dreaded “sea people” that mark the real-life bronze-age collapse, and season the dialogue of this film with some real-world flavor.
It also marks the arrogance the Odysseus consistently shows throughout the film, like the training portion with Telemachus and Mentor, Odysseus consistently shows why the right actions, and the right decision-making, will not release the handiwork of the gods they will continue to control the affairs of men. Sometimes it is best to show your belly. In the moment where Odysseus surrenders to the Gods, drifting on his raft clutching the Athena pin, Odysseus finally shows his belly and surrenders all his cunning and cleverness to return to what he already had. The same place the siren songs had reminded him of, what he desired and what he never knew he desired. The Sirens sang of it all. Odysseus had the nasty wake up call of knowing himself, in the film he is shown not in ecstasy as a result of the Siren’s call, but in pain. I imagine the pain was made even more real because he had made the decision to leave it all, to spend 17 years suffering, 10 of those at war, to know that everything he desired might not await him when he returned, that sea peoples like he knew himself to be may have already stripped away all that he loved.
The odyssey wasn’t the trip itself or the adventures that were had, although those things propel the story forward, the odyssey is Odysseus entering into his own soul and realizing all his own mistakes are ultimately the result of his own defiance. His only hope as he puts it, are that his mistakes will be forgotten by future generations, as they create a new (hopefully) better society. He and his wife literally sail off into the sunset towards the unknown "Western" lands (maybe a nod to America?) to honor the fallen dead, all of which represent Odysseus's failed decisions, and literally haunt him in the film chasing him and his men back to his ship. Odysseus is an honorable man, keeping Sinon’s request to bring back to Antinous his shame and fulfilling the charge to honor those men, yet throughout the film we see him defying common tradition, even acting in ways that are considered highly dishonorable to act upon the immediacy of the moment. All of these actions have consequences, the highest of which may be the scorn that Odysseus pulls upon himself from the Gods, yet in the end, only Odysseus himself survives.
The mercy shown to Odysseus and his final success is a result of Athena’s intervention in the original story, in this movie we get a sense that Athena is watching over him but we don’t see her directly intervene with the other Gods. In fact, only Odysseus ever seems to see Athena, despite his son repeatedly saying that various characters have Athena’s eyes, including Mentor, and Odysseus himself. The idea of atonement was floated around in a viral interview with Christopher Nolan himself. The idea that despite all of his mistakes and sins Odysseus is forgiven is a compelling conclusion, it speaks of all of us and our atonement, of our ability to be ultimately free of shame and guilt of past mistakes that we can reach a sort of perfection of circumstance that of complete approval by the gods, the end of karmic debt, or the forgiveness of our sins.
Odysseus seems to seek this in the end, as we see him and his wife, and the best of his crew go sailing to honor the fallen. The God’s have already granted him passage home (to his loyal and faithful wife) now Odysseus seeks the forgiveness of his own men and ultimately to find forgiveness for himself. God’s approval is already provided, his choices cannot be defied, yet he allows us to believe we have the ability to choose, and in a sense we do. The choice to pursue destruction is always available, yet the choice for redemption it’s polar opposite, will be available to us whenever we learn to surrender. If we had just done that in the first place we wouldn’t be in this mess. But sometimes it takes an odyssey to get us there.