[The following review contains MINOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!]
As might reasonably be expected of an epic poem based on oral traditions, the storytelling language of Homer’s Odyssey is inherently literary. How remarkable, then, that The Return manages to so elegantly adapt the original text for the screen! Director Uberto Pasolini skillfully translates the intangible beauty and rhythm of verse into concrete imagery: the cool spray of ocean waves crashing into towering cliffs, the graceful dance of splintered debris drifting in the ebbing tide, the faint flicker of torchlight gently illuminating discarded threads on an otherwise bare stone floor.
The film’s greatest spectacle, however, is the weathered landscape of Ralph Fiennes’ face. This version of Odysseus is a wounded soldier haunted by guilt and grief; his gaunt, scarred visage and distant eyes clearly convey his repressed trauma: the horrors that he witnessed at Troy, the hardships that he endured during his subsequent voyages, and his utter despair upon discovering that violence has followed him home. “We burned the city to the ground and doused the flames with blood,” he laments in a particularly memorable scene—the quintessential veteran suffering from PTSD (no anachronism here; certain kinds of pain are universal).
It’s a magnificently minimalistic and emotionally honest interpretation of the ancient source material, recontextualizing the Hero’s Journey as a purely internal conflict—one of self-discovery, redemption, and reconciliation. And while the movie unfortunately omits the fantastical monsters and manipulative deities that arguably define the myths and legends that inspired it, I find its intimacy, humanity, and subtlety equally appealing.
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