The Odyssey: Initial Thoughts – E184

Christopher Nolan is a master of his craft, and it is clear that this is going to be one of the best picture contenders for the year, if not a shoo-in for best picture.

The movie The Odyssey is obviously based on The Odyssey, the myth written by Homer in ancient Greece.

One, just because it is a cinematic masterpiece in that it's Practical sets, IMAX camera, shot on film, costuming, set design, and it shows up on screen in like a really visceral, tangible sort of way.

But on another level, this movie is, it's mythic.

And when I say that, I don't mean that like, oh, it was based off of like ancient Greek myth.

I mean that the story is representative and symbolic and archetypal.

But if you can read a movie symbolically and archetypally and like understand metaphor and symbolism symbolically, this movie will be very important to you.

In a lot of ways, I was sitting there thinking that this is a sequel to Oppenheimer.

And that in a lot of ways, it's a meditation on violence.

It's a meditation on masculinity.

What do you do after you've unleashed a plague or a certain new tool or new evil onto the world? How does that impact a man? Odysseus was the guy who did the Trojan horse and allowed his forces to win the Trojan war.

And the whole thing is him grappling with the way in which he achieved victory.

It's impactful.

And I was deeply impressed by it.

There were people around me after the movie ended in, you know, as everyone starts to chatter about the movie who clear that they didn't understand a lot of the themes that were going on.

within the movie, even though I felt like they were pretty well laid out.

This is easily in Nolan's top three films.

I still think Interstellar had more pathos.

It was probably his most emotional film.

I'm excited for the world to see it.

And I'm excited to hear what everyone has to say.

And as we kind of join in the conversation around the Odyssey.