This is a smaller point in the film but I was genuinely astounded by the treatment of Melantho this film, especially in the context of how Nolan referenced reading and taking influence from the Wilson translation that takes efforts to present more empathy to the slave characters
Melantho is presented as a traitor who has sold out Penelope to Antinous while sheâs having an affair with him. And in the fight with the suitors Penelope shoved that little girl out of the womenâs quarters into the blood bath as her own form of revenge.
The only thing we get is a passing line from Antonioâs âyou canât expect her to be loyal to a man she never knewâ and they do exactly nothing with this. All the while Eumaus (who has also absorbed the role of eurycleia who is reduced to a cameo) is admired and respected for his maintained loyalty to Odysseus
Oh that is nasty af. This is why I get frustrated when ppl blame Emily Wilson for the terrible writing choices in this movie, even she criticized the movie.
This movie is generally needlessly cruel to women, Melantho is just a powerless slave yet sheâs treated with no empathy, both in the Odyssey and in this film which actually doubles down on mistreating Melantho.
Nolanâs Odyssey thoughts. I brought in a notebook and filled 9.5 pages of scribbled thoughts throughout the three hours I was suffering. I hated this movie and I really tried to go into it with an open mind as much as possible and damn it really sucks. This movie really put the no in nostos.
(obviously spoilers ahead)
Random big thoughts
This movie felt like it was made for high school English teachers to show but then 95% of the way through making it, they were like actually nevermind and added in some f-bombs and a few (like 2-3 nonsexual nudity) shots of asses to solve the problem.Â
Odysseus hates the gods and at times barely believes in them, but also refuses to push back against anything that could be seen as a prophecy. Itâs so fucking weird because itâs equivalent to a modern atheist being like âChristianity is dumb and probably a crock of bullshit, also donât lie because itâs a sin and God will be madâ.
I wrote this down verbatim, âAn Odysseus that hesitates about returning to Ithaca is like the sun hesitating to riseâ and I do believe I cooked with that. Same is true with a Penelope that doubts Odysseus and a Telemachus that doesnât need a father, which this movie has.
Hereâs the thing, up until Odysseus lands in Ithaca, the movie is fine. It isnât good, it isnât horrific, itâs a little cringe and a little irritating for me as an enjoyer of the Odyssey, but it wasnât bad. If I turned off my brain from know-it-all Greek mythology enjoyer Asha to action movie enjoyer Asha, I think I could have had a decent time. However, it all falls apart when Odysseus returns home, any ounce of characterization is crushed to bits and it just sucks and makes no sense. Reminder, I honestly enjoyed the Troy: Fall of a City miniseries so accuracy is not always my hill to die on but god, I would like the hill to at least be in eyesight.
Random little thoughts (in no order)
UGLYYYYYYY ass costumes like I knew they were bad but itâs such an eyesore. There was not a single outfit that I was like âthat looks niceâ.
This is one of the first movies Iâve ever seen where I wanted MORE gore and MORE things that made me sick to my stomach. Like, show me Odysseusâs men starving, show me blood spraying down when men are taken by Scylla, show me more soldiers drowning.Â
They massacred the characterization of every woman (fork found in kitchen, Nolan canât write women, but still)
Thereâs a lot of things in this film that changing from poem to movie was pointless. My most memorable example of this being that Eumaeus is visually impaired, Eumaeus also at one point says Odysseus was like a son to him. These arenât huge deals and donât affect the plot but to those amongst us who enjoy the Odyssey, itâs just annoying.
Iphigenia is sacrificed by Agamemnon before Odysseus leaves Ithaca?????????
Thereâs a lot of time and plot spent centered on Argos (yeah the dog).
Odysseus only has 3 ships the whole film, holyyyyy budget cuts.Â
On Calypsoâs island, Odysseus forgets everything because she keeps drugging him with lotus flowers. He doesnât remember how he got to her island, doesnât remember his family or Ithaca until she like⊠weans him off and he starts to remember that. He basically feels none of the time pass.
Half of Helenâs face is physically scarred from the Trojan War, itâs implied that Menelaus mutilated her. Thereâs a disgusting line where Menelaus says, âthis is the face that launched a thousand ships, although now it would maybe be five-hundred.â GROSS
The Laestrygonians look like cybermen and no I will not elaborate.
There is a scene where Athenaâs temple is destroyed in Troy and itâs implied that whatever happens to the temple, happens to the god. (like a soldier wacks off Athenaâs statueâs head, it switches to a scene of Athena being held down and nearly decapitated) Itâs a neat idea but in a movie where the gods are ridiculed by the main character, it just doesnât work.
No Achilles or Anticleia in the underworld SIGHHH
No Nestor or Peisistratus SIGGGGGHHHHHH they hate to see yappers represented.
Telemachus and Odysseusâs reunion is so ass, like thereâs no bout of emotional resonance at all, theyâre two worlds apart.
Telemachus sucks as a character Tom Holland you are British how did you make Telemachus so fucking American. No one talk to me about Telemachus he sucked so fucking bad in this movie.
No wedding bed anything insane and might I add fucking crazy. Again, this is classic Odyssey stuff.
At the end of the movie, Odysseus and Penelope travel west(?) and leave Telemachus as king of Ithaca, to honor the fallen soldiers. This is the Greek mythology equivalent of retired American couples moving to Florida I think.
The Cyclops
The cyclops doesnât speak to Odysseus (the men donât even know itâs a sentient being until after they stab it in the eye) which means we get no âNobodyâ scene which is already a travesty because I fear thatâs classic Odysseus. And I do feel like the cyclops being more of a monster ruins the whole point of it being about breaking xenia. If Polyphemus is just an unnamed monster, what makes him any different from Scylla or Charybdis??? Â
Small thing to be pissy about but to get past the cyclops they tied hay to their back instead of hanging from the bellies of the sheep.
We also get no scene of hubris from Odysseus, again this is classic Odysseus.
The Suitors
Antinous called beggar Odysseus a âplatelickerâ and then after a few times I swear on my life he said âplatelickaâ it was insane and I wish I was jokingÂ
This movie creates a lot of Antinous lore that I think is fairly unnecessary since Antinous already had lore (Eupiethesâs pirate background) but let me explain the Antinous lore to the best of my memory.
So Odysseus holds a lottery for his army. A young Antinous and a younger Sinon draw lots and Antinous draws the lot that indicates he will fight. Sinon, maybe 13 years old, swaps their lots because he wants to go to war with Odysseus. Antinous (probably 16-18 years old) tries to protest but Odysseus wonât let them change back. Antinous interprets this as âOdysseus knew he might not come back and wanted me to be in charge of Ithacaâ.Â
Penelope is in the hall right before Odysseus starts killing, inaccurate but why I mention this here is because she doesnât let Melantho come with the women to safety. She leaves her in the hall to die in the slaughter. Now if you know me you know I am an Melantho ENJOYER and so I hate to see my girl done badly (maybe the Melantho shit will be itâs own rant).
Antinous x Melantho I CALLED THAT THEY WOULD DO THAT A YEAR AGO
In the end, Odysseus doesnât kill all the suitors (although he does kill Antinous). Insane because to make things right in Ithaca Odysseus HAS to kill the suitors. Itâs the reason that he kills the 12 disloyal maids in the poem because if they live, they represent his own failures blah blah blah whatever I hate it here.
The gods (or lack of)
Athena is the only god with form we see and Iâm going to be real honest with you, I didnât have the brain power to try to figure out what was going on with her.Â
Zeus does destroy the ship after the sun godâs cows thing and let me just say if you canât handle flashing lights this is not ur film because the lightning goes CRAZY and not in a good interesting way but in a âmy retinas are burned outâ way.
No Hermes and no Aeolus sorry my plot scaffolding kings.
âAsha, did you like anything in this movie?â
Probably surprising but yes. When Odysseusâs men are turned to pigs by Circe, she has to physically mold them from man to pigs so she like⊠rips their hair out and pulls their ears and pushes up their noses until they turn to pigs which was so fucking fascinating to me. I hated the Circe scenes with her and Odysseus but goddamn Nolan you cooked with that body horror. Like, if the ending of this movie wasnât hot garbage I would recommend it for that scene alone.
I also thought the scenes pre-Trojan war in Ithaca were cute, newlywed OdyPen and Odysseus being like a father figure to the younger men of Ithaca (maybe 2 mins of screen time altogether, not much to write home about but I enjoyed the scraps we got).
Soundtrack was good occasionally
Thatâs all I wanna write about for now. Who wants to start a GoFundMe for Homer to get a gun and a time machine to kill Nolan?
Ok but I want ppl to understand how absurd it is that religious Greek heroes are rewritten to hate the gods whether itâs in Hollywood movies or retellings.
So imagine this: imagine if someone made a retelling based on Abrahamic religion and they write important figures like Abraham, Lot or Moses as hating god and rebelling against him bc of the hardships they suffered. Sounds absurd doesnât it? Now apply that to Greek mythology. Why would Perseus, Achilles, Theseus or Odysseus reject the gods?
Pls tell me more about how bad Sweetbitter Song is bc Iâm too scared to read it myself lol
Alright alright so keep in mind that I SPEED read this book in like 1.5 hours and its a 400+ pg book so I was definitely skipping pages and I am not the number 1 source (I'm going to do a more thorough analysis when my library gets a copy because I'm NOT paying for that piece of garabage but the librarian told me that they probably won't get it until June) but anyways. My credentials are 10+ hours of research for a fic that currently has đđ like 2k words
tws: talk of rape/underage stuff that is included in that book
Absolutely no order of things that really shocked me about this book
1) the book starts with 9 year old Melantho being sent to Icarius's house to be his newest sex slave (after he got the last one pregnant) with no warning which is... off-putting to say the least. But no worries! (sarcastic) Penelope saves melantho with her wits so it all works out
2) this is NOT the point and you might even be thinking Asha why are you so stuck on this point when it's a sapphic book but the part of the book that states that Penelope has never orgasmed with Odysseus actually lives in my head rent free
3) changing Melantho's whole backstory to be that she (and Melanthius to a lesser degree) are raised by a single mom and have an abusive dad is.... weird to me idk justice for Dolius. There's definitely a narrative around queer characters that their parents have to be evil all the time.
4) also getting rid of her other brothers irritated me no thoughts about it except that I was annoyed
5) the fact that Melantho wasnt killed and just... escaped... bothered me because i feel like she has to die in every adaptation of the Odyssey, I dont care how it exactly happens (1997 Odyssey where shes killed with Eurymachus or original source material being hung) but she literally represents Odysseus's home being cleansed of the filth of the suitors
6) the fact that the Eurymachus/Melantho non-con scene was wayyyyy longer than the Melantho/Penelope's first time having sex was....... a choice
7) Penelope drugs Odysseus to sleep so she can say goodbye to Melantho which gave me a good laugh about how out of character that was
I most definitely have more to say but this is off the top of my head grrr feel free to dm with any Melantho thoughts.
8) I feel like this book walks a weird line of making Melantho a helpless victim but for some reason she has so much agency? Like she's helpless and miserable until the plot needs something else. It's bad characterization.
9) constantly pitting Melantho as a bad girl type and Penelope as an overly lalala personality wowie bad characterization and also weird considering their dynamic
