Some scenes are enough to make me rank a movie high with zero room for argument and for The Odyssey itâs Samantha Mortonâs performance as Circe and the way she molds the men into pigs with her bare hands the way she get her hands dirty and handles them like clay and plunges her hands to bring their inside out as she transforms them because that is what sheâs doing and the way she serves them up to their own captain for slaughter and the way she whispers âgo back to your disguiseâ when she she turns them back into humans the way she gave Odysseus her prophecy the chill that went down my back with every word she spoke the way that scene made the movie into high art horror for me Samantha Morton deserves her flowers for this and Nolan captured Circeâs quiet rage perfectly
watched nolan's odyssey and i usually keep my reviews pretty short, so here goes
is it a good movie? neither yes nor no. it depends on the person.
if you're in it for a good experience and a beautiful movie, then you will enjoy it a lot.
if you're in it for historical/cultural accuracy and faithfulness to the original book, then you will NOT enjoy it.
i think we should stop expecting any adaptation to be 100 percent accurate at all times. you are free to criticise the movie for a myriad of reasons and it should be criticised. it's a giant movie from a famous director, there are high expectations that he has to reach.
in the end, that was a white man directing a movie about a culture and history he knows too little about to truly comprehend. it's a very pretty movie, with beautiful imagery, awesome effects, great choreography, and camera work. but it's not a good adaptation. don't expect it to be.
Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey was filmed in occupied western Sahara.
Hollywood's blockbuster adaptation of the ancient Greek epic The Odyssey premieres around the world today amid growing calls for a boycott. Human rights campaigners are criticizing director Christopher Nolan over his decision to film part of the film in Western Sahara, a vast territory in northwestern Africa that Morocco has occupied for the past half-century.
"This occupying force is practicing cultural genocide against the Sahrawi people, ethnic cleansing," says MarĂa CarriĂłn, the executive director of the Western Sahara International Film Festival. "By staying silent for one year and then using this footage, Nolan has basically become an accomplice to Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara."
Abidin Mohamed Hamudi, a Sahrawi filmmaker speaking to Democracy Now! from Algeria, says he cannot return to his home in Western Sahara, but Nolan "can just go there and film and be complicit in the occupation of my homeland." He calls it "a metaphor of how the Western world uses human rights, democracy narratives whenever they want, and then ignore it in other parts of the world."
The decision to shoot in Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara, where the Indigenous people canât tell their stories without fear of imprisonment
The simple act of holding a camera in my homeland of Western Sahara can be a crime. When Sahrawi film-makers and journalists attempt to document everyday life under Moroccan occupation, they can often end up in prison cells. For the Moroccan regime, a camera in the hands of a Sahrawi threatens its official narrative that Western Sahara is part of Morocco.
In contrast, when celebrated international names in the film industry wish to capture an ideal picture for an epic journey, and decide that our land is exotic enough to shoot the desired scenes, they are welcomed, escorted and granted access by the same authorities that usually deny us that right.
[...]
Nolanâs choice to film in an occupied territory highlights the extractivist practices embedded in the western film industry. Western cinema has often been complicit in mining stories and immaterial culture from the global south at a scale no smaller than the material resources mined by the western colonial industrial complex. International film crews parachute in, shoot our faces, clothing, dunes and material culture, then fly off. For them, it seems we are simply decorative elements for their sets and back in New York, London or Paris, they gain prestige, box-office returns and awards.
For Nolanâs Dakhla shoot, he appears to have neither sought our consent nor considered the ethics of in effect helping to prop up and legitimise Moroccoâs occupation, thus making the space even more unsafe for Sahrawis living under it. He is actively participating in a state-sponsored PR campaign designed to legitimise an illegal occupation.
Iâm sorry when you referred to 2026 Circe as an âold hagâ and itâs literally just Samantha Morton living alone on an island looking like a normal ass person. Oy fucking vey
Sorry, I didn't meant to insult her. It's just that she's closer to the archetype of the witch alone in cottage than a glamorous sorceress like in past versions. This is probably the least sexualized portrayal of Circe that I have ever seen, and this is not a bad thing to me. I loved her.
She's a fantastic character and I loved her scenes. The way she transformed them into pigs is delightfully morbid.
I posted this originally on Letterboxd, but I want to share with all my mutuals as well
Spoiler Alert!!!!!
I just went back from watching Nolan's Odyssey movie, and I have so many thoughts. Prepare yourselves, this will be a long review.
I will start by saying how I hate the culture war that this film caused. I think I hate both sides of the conversation. I hate the pathetic anti-SWJs and how they made a huge deal of Nolan casting a few non-white actors and a trans actor to play a cis role, as if POC and queer actors never had played roles in Greek mythology films before. But as a Greek mythology fan, I hate how my own camp reacted to this film, being rabid Homer purists and not even giving this film a chance.
It's Christopher Nolan's Odyssey. It's exactly what it says on the tin. He doesn't even try to be historically accurate. Who knew that brutalism would be an architecture style so popular in the Bronze Age Mediterranean? Odysseus travels in a viking ship for goodness sake. This is a guy who has no experience directing period fantasy pieces, so he designed ancient Greece as a generic "the past" with a few fancy costumes. I can't say I'm a fan of this aesthetic, but the film is so much more than that, and I feel like reducing the whole end product to a couple of weird directorial choices is shallow, intellectually dishonest and anti-art.Â
I can say it right. @the-blue-fairie, @thealmightyemprex, I'm speaking specifically to you because I know you read my reviews and you don't like Nolan's style, this film isn't for you. Everything that you dislike about Nolan's directorial style is present in this film. This doesn't make the film bad, though.Â
Everything is gray, dark, moody; the film takes itself as seriously as a shipwreck. It doesn't allow a single moment of levity. And it still embraces the fantasy elements.
Contrary to past adaptations, like the Hallmark miniseries or even the Tiktok concept album, it embraces the fantasy elements without embracing the wonder. The magic feels offputting, strange, like a disquieting apparition.Â
Polyphemus doesn't speak properly, just proffering a few otherworldly and inhuman ramblings after Odysseus and his crew blind him, asking for Poseidon to curse them.
The Lastrygonians aren't rock-throwing giants , but an army of ruthless giants in full metal armor who don't rest until they kill as many of Odysseus' crew as they could find.Â
Circe isn't a beautiful sorceress in a huge temple filled with nymphs, she's almost an old hag living in an old hut who has to manually twist the bodies of Odysseus' crew to turn them into pigs, in moments of visceral body horror. There's no Hermes here.
The ghosts of Odysseus' fallen men don't just haunt him, they try to physically attack him when they journey to Hades.Â
There are no Lotus Eaters. Calypso is drugging Odysseus with lotus flowers herself, making him forget almost everything and making him live in a mist of confusion for years. All that to make him forget the horrors he saw.
Telemachus and Penelope share a very tempestuous relationship for a son and mother, with Penelope bitter about being powerless as a woman, constantly arguing with her son, belittling him, while Telemachus is constantly trying to prove he is fully capable of leading Ithaca.
And more, there are no gods here. Only Athena appears, in brief visions Odysseus has, before it's revealed in the end that she's wearing the face of the young priestess that the Greek army killed when they profaned Athena's temple in Troy. It's left ambiguous if she's Athena herself or only a manifestation of Odysseus' guilt for the horrors he took part in. She has tears in her eyes when Odysseus remembers the priestess being killed and Athena's statue beheaded.
Everything is meant to be unpleasant, not fully into horror territory, but extremely upsetting, strange. Maybe other directors could have made it more striking. Nolan has a too down-to-earth style. He films fantasy like he films sci-fi, but the guy is effective at what he wants to portray.
He makes you feel like you are right there inside this world. No matter how anachronistic this Greek world is, it feels like it exists. You won't see any bad CGI or bad special effects. The combination of score, camera angles, and editing choices immerse you completely in this story, as if the adventures and horrors are happening all around you.Â
And all this lack of wonder has a point, because the film has a central theme: Hospitality and decay.Â
Hospitality in this world is not just courtesy, it's a sacred law that guides this civilization. You should accept and treat well everyone that reaches your residence, be it a noble or a beggar, because they may be a god in disguise. Yet, people are constantly exploiting or breaking the laws of hospitality, the sacred laws of Zeus: From Antinous and the other suitors abusing Penelope's hospitality for years, from Polyphemus eating Odysseusâ crew, from Circe turning them into pigs when they were almost starving, and lastly, when the Greeks offered the Trojan Horse as a gift of peace to Athena before slaughtering the whole city.
This single act of breaking the laws of hospitality is what dooms this entire world.Â
This film is set during the Collapse of the Age of Bronze, the period of dark ages between Mycenaean Greece and Classical Greece, a period in which the epic poems were meant as a reminder of all the glory lost in the process.Â
This is a world in decay, where everything is dying and collapsing.Â
At all times, there are constantly mentions of the Sea People and how they may attack and destroy their kingdoms at any time. The Sea People are an unknown people who are theorized by some historians to be one of the causes for the Bronze Age collapse. Itâs one of the threats that makes the suitorsâ situation even more urgent. Ithaca needs someone who can protect it from the Sea People.Â
And then, almost by the end of the film, itâs revealed: The Sea People are the Greeks who sacked Troy. The memory of what they have done, of how they broke the laws of Zeus spread through the Mediterranean, and that has caused a cascade effect of every rule that governs civilization starting to collapse.
This is the main reason for why Odysseus canât go back home, he canât live with what he has done. The whole journey is him dealing with his constant guilt and trying to make things better, but only making them worse as a result. He knows what he has done has consequences, and heâs watching as it spreads to the whole world.
In the end, Odysseus and Penelope exile themselves to a journey into the west, while Telemachus rules Ithaca as king, but even though our main leads are happy, itâs evidently clear that as a whole, this world, all kingdoms visited are doomed. Everything will collapse and the songs about their feats and mistakes will be the only things remembered.
The Trojan War is depicted as both this world's GötterdĂ€mmerung, the Twilight of the Gods, and its Original Sin, the primordial crime from which every subsequent horror symbolically descends.Â
This film has a happy ending, but it doesnât end on a hopeful note. The final shot of the film is the Trojan Horse ablaze, symbolizing the violation of the laws of hospitality and how that symbolizes the decay that will destroy everything.Â
We are living in times of economic recessions, environmental catastrophes, and liberal democracies in decay. Despite all the dubious choices Nolan made, the text is incredibly rich. Maybe this is the story for our times.Â
@themousefromfantasyland it's interesting that you say this is not for me because, on the one hand, I can absolutely see that being true. On the other hand, from your review, I am most intrigued by the "almost-horror" approach. Although I do not know if I trust Nolan to stick the landing with that, no matter the pig-transforming body horror. ...Like, I can love somber and vaguely horrifying, I just... don't think I'll like it when Nolan does it.
I'll be honest. I don't think you and @thealmightyemprex will enjoy this, but I think you'll enjoy certain scenes: particularly on Polyphemus lair and on Circe's island. These are the scenes that feel most like outright horror.
I wonder if you'll like Zendaya's Athena. Her scenes are brief, but poignant. Also, Elliot Page plays Sinon, and I do enjoy his character and his relationship with Odysseus even if he's, again, a minor but important character.
Also, I think this is one of the only adaptations of the Odyssey that includes Argos and his death.
Yep, they included this scene and it is a heartbreaking as you possibly could imagine. Draw me to tears almost immediately.
I posted this originally on Letterboxd, but I want to share with all my mutuals as well
Spoiler Alert!!!!!
I just went back from watching Nolan's Odyssey movie, and I have so many thoughts. Prepare yourselves, this will be a long review.
I will start by saying how I hate the culture war that this film caused. I think I hate both sides of the conversation. I hate the pathetic anti-SWJs and how they made a huge deal of Nolan casting a few non-white actors and a trans actor to play a cis role, as if POC and queer actors never had played roles in Greek mythology films before. But as a Greek mythology fan, I hate how my own camp reacted to this film, being rabid Homer purists and not even giving this film a chance.
It's Christopher Nolan's Odyssey. It's exactly what it says on the tin. He doesn't even try to be historically accurate. Who knew that brutalism would be an architecture style so popular in the Bronze Age Mediterranean? Odysseus travels in a viking ship for goodness sake. This is a guy who has no experience directing period fantasy pieces, so he designed ancient Greece as a generic "the past" with a few fancy costumes. I can't say I'm a fan of this aesthetic, but the film is so much more than that, and I feel like reducing the whole end product to a couple of weird directorial choices is shallow, intellectually dishonest and anti-art.Â
I can say it right. @the-blue-fairie, @thealmightyemprex, I'm speaking specifically to you because I know you read my reviews and you don't like Nolan's style, this film isn't for you. Everything that you dislike about Nolan's directorial style is present in this film. This doesn't make the film bad, though.Â
Everything is gray, dark, moody; the film takes itself as seriously as a shipwreck. It doesn't allow a single moment of levity. And it still embraces the fantasy elements.
Contrary to past adaptations, like the Hallmark miniseries or even the Tiktok concept album, it embraces the fantasy elements without embracing the wonder. The magic feels offputting, strange, like a disquieting apparition.Â
Polyphemus doesn't speak properly, just proffering a few otherworldly and inhuman ramblings after Odysseus and his crew blind him, asking for Poseidon to curse them.
The Lastrygonians aren't rock-throwing giants , but an army of ruthless giants in full metal armor who don't rest until they kill as many of Odysseus' crew as they could find.Â
Circe isn't a beautiful sorceress in a huge temple filled with nymphs, she's almost an old hag living in an old hut who has to manually twist the bodies of Odysseus' crew to turn them into pigs, in moments of visceral body horror. There's no Hermes here.
The ghosts of Odysseus' fallen men don't just haunt him, they try to physically attack him when they journey to Hades.Â
There are no Lotus Eaters. Calypso is drugging Odysseus with lotus flowers herself, making him forget almost everything and making him live in a mist of confusion for years. All that to make him forget the horrors he saw.
Telemachus and Penelope share a very tempestuous relationship for a son and mother, with Penelope bitter about being powerless as a woman, constantly arguing with her son, belittling him, while Telemachus is constantly trying to prove he is fully capable of leading Ithaca.
And more, there are no gods here. Only Athena appears, in brief visions Odysseus has, before it's revealed in the end that she's wearing the face of the young priestess that the Greek army killed when they profaned Athena's temple in Troy. It's left ambiguous if she's Athena herself or only a manifestation of Odysseus' guilt for the horrors he took part in. She has tears in her eyes when Odysseus remembers the priestess being killed and Athena's statue beheaded.
Everything is meant to be unpleasant, not fully into horror territory, but extremely upsetting, strange. Maybe other directors could have made it more striking. Nolan has a too down-to-earth style. He films fantasy like he films sci-fi, but the guy is effective at what he wants to portray.
He makes you feel like you are right there inside this world. No matter how anachronistic this Greek world is, it feels like it exists. You won't see any bad CGI or bad special effects. The combination of score, camera angles, and editing choices immerse you completely in this story, as if the adventures and horrors are happening all around you.Â
And all this lack of wonder has a point, because the film has a central theme: Hospitality and decay.Â
Hospitality in this world is not just courtesy, it's a sacred law that guides this civilization. You should accept and treat well everyone that reaches your residence, be it a noble or a beggar, because they may be a god in disguise. Yet, people are constantly exploiting or breaking the laws of hospitality, the sacred laws of Zeus: From Antinous and the other suitors abusing Penelope's hospitality for years, from Polyphemus eating Odysseusâ crew, from Circe turning them into pigs when they were almost starving, and lastly, when the Greeks offered the Trojan Horse as a gift of peace to Athena before slaughtering the whole city.
This single act of breaking the laws of hospitality is what dooms this entire world.Â
This film is set during the Collapse of the Age of Bronze, the period of dark ages between Mycenaean Greece and Classical Greece, a period in which the epic poems were meant as a reminder of all the glory lost in the process.Â
This is a world in decay, where everything is dying and collapsing.Â
At all times, there are constantly mentions of the Sea People and how they may attack and destroy their kingdoms at any time. The Sea People are an unknown people who are theorized by some historians to be one of the causes for the Bronze Age collapse. Itâs one of the threats that makes the suitorsâ situation even more urgent. Ithaca needs someone who can protect it from the Sea People.Â
And then, almost by the end of the film, itâs revealed: The Sea People are the Greeks who sacked Troy. The memory of what they have done, of how they broke the laws of Zeus spread through the Mediterranean, and that has caused a cascade effect of every rule that governs civilization starting to collapse.
This is the main reason for why Odysseus canât go back home, he canât live with what he has done. The whole journey is him dealing with his constant guilt and trying to make things better, but only making them worse as a result. He knows what he has done has consequences, and heâs watching as it spreads to the whole world.
In the end, Odysseus and Penelope exile themselves to a journey into the west, while Telemachus rules Ithaca as king, but even though our main leads are happy, itâs evidently clear that as a whole, this world, all kingdoms visited are doomed. Everything will collapse and the songs about their feats and mistakes will be the only things remembered.
The Trojan War is depicted as both this world's GötterdĂ€mmerung, the Twilight of the Gods, and its Original Sin, the primordial crime from which every subsequent horror symbolically descends.Â
This film has a happy ending, but it doesnât end on a hopeful note. The final shot of the film is the Trojan Horse ablaze, symbolizing the violation of the laws of hospitality and how that symbolizes the decay that will destroy everything.Â
We are living in times of economic recessions, environmental catastrophes, and liberal democracies in decay. Despite all the dubious choices Nolan made, the text is incredibly rich. Maybe this is the story for our times.Â
Since we had to sacrifice Ever After High to the fairytale retelling gods can we keep making new Descendants movies until it reaches Once Upon a Time levels of unhinged?
Without fail, every time a woman is talking about how she does not want to have children and never wants to be pregnant and how medical professionals, romantic interests and family members keep trying to bulldoze her decision and keep expecting her to change her mind because motherhood is something that is expected of all women and it is abhorrent to think a woman could not desire it, a random mother spawns in the comments to be like âWell, actually, you never know! I didnât want children and then I got pregnant and I realized I love being a mama and I have five little babies now! Could happen to you! đ„°â
Sister, keep that to yourself or make your own goddamn post, you are ignoring that womanâs central concern and belittling her, you donât even think youâre doing it. Formerly childfree women who ended up having children and loving it are like detransitioners in the sense that there is nothing inherently wrong with changing your mind about having children or realizing you were mistaken about your gender identity but immediately weaponizing your indecision to tell people that the barriers to healthcare and the violations of their bodily autonomy and the way society ignores that personâs wishes is actually okay because you were wrong. Some people do know themselves.
I decided to scan my old Chaudron Magique belongings because time is not being kind on them, so at least it will be preserved somewhere...
But for the many of you who wonder what I am talking about, "Chaudron Magique" (Magic Cauldron) was a short-lived French magazine (from 2007 to 2011) entirely dedicated to fantasy in all of its shapes and forms (including supernatural adventure, mythology, science-fantasy and more). While officially "from 8 to 1000 years", it was a magazine aimed at children and teenagers. Each issue came with little goodies and additional material (at least until 2011, when the magazine due to a lack of funds stopped making them... which partially accelerated the downfall of the brand).
For example, for the year 2010 they released this lovely, humoristic "fantasy-calendar", disponible in a poster format:
Scans by yours truly, don't mind the dates I circled at the time.
This calendar presents in a mix the days of "magical events to celebrate" (Epiphany, Easter, Walpurgis, Halloween, Samhain...), the anniversaries of "classical authors" (Maupassant, Lovecraft, Mary Shelley, Collodi, C.S. Lewis, Dickens, Jules Verne or L. Frank Baum...), and those of "modern authors" (Robin Hobb, Douglas Adams, Tad Williams, Mercedes Lackey, Tanith Lee, Michael Moorcock and more) ; all sprinkled with mock-"folk sayings" parodying the typical "weather sayings" of almanachs.
Each month is renamed after a pun associating it with a fantasy creature. January is the Giant month, February the Elf month, Mars the wizard's, April the dwarf's, May a gorgon month, June a demon month, July is for the zombie, August for the hobbit ; Septembre is for the Wraith, October for the Orc, November for the Gnome and finally December is the dragon's month. And each season is also given an imaginary figure to be associated with (all the credits for every artist's work is to be found on the poster itself).
Winter's is Ymir. "Born at the dawn of time, when the cold breath of Niflheim the world of darkness met the heat of MĂŒspelheim the world of fire. He is the father of frost-giants in Norse mythology."
Spring's is the Ent. "At the end of winter sap spreads again in the veins of the Ents, who can move once more their branches and roots to go wake up the inhabitants of their forest-realm."
Summer's is Surtr. "At the end of times, according to Norse mythology, this prince of the ember-giants shall leave his burning realm of MĂŒspelheim to set ablaze the entire universe with its smoldering sword."
And Autumn's is the "Draco Sylvestris". "Half-tree, half-dragon, it gets numb during autumn and is used as a refuge by various small creatures."
Sometimes, fanfiction is carefully plotted out stories, with plot points and call backs and themes that all tie it up in a meaningful and exciting way.
And sometimes fanfiction is, âWatch me do a fucking KICK FLIP off this cool sentence!! Also here's some sex'
Both are beautiful forms of writing.
Alex Mouse from Fantasyland @themousefromfantasyland - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
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