The EAND Papers – No.3: The Odyssey Movie Review or What my Greek Forebears Apparently did after Schoolies

A review by an Australian Greek engineer

Watching Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, I gradually realised that I had misunderstood Homer all my life.

This was not an epic account of war, fate, pride, loyalty, gods and the long struggle to return home.

It was a travel diary written by a group of Greek boys after Schoolies.

For readers outside Australia, Schoolies is the traditional end-of-Year-12 celebration during which young people leave home for a week, make a succession of remarkably poor decisions and later provide their parents with an account containing substantial gaps in the evidence.

Odysseus and his mates appear to have done much the same thing, except that their Schoolies trip lasted ten years, involved several ships and ended with nearly everyone dead.

You can imagine them trying to explain it when they finally returned.

“Where have you been?”

“Well, there was this island.”

“What island?”

“We don’t know. But there was a Cyclops.”

“A Cyclops?”

“Yes. One eye. Huge fellow.”

“And what happened to the ships?”

“That is a very long story.”

I suspect mind-altering substances may have been involved. Possibly magic mushrooms. A Cyclops is one thing, but giant warriors running into the sea in enormous suits of steel armour during the Bronze Age suggests that somebody’s recollection was not entirely reliable.

As an engineer, I only hope the armour was 316L stainless steel. Charging repeatedly through salt water in ordinary carbon steel would have created serious corrosion problems, particularly around the joints. Perhaps that was why the giants were so angry.

A Properly Mediterranean Cast

Much has apparently been made of the film’s inclusive casting. I had no difficulty with it.

Helen and her sister Clytemnestra are played by Lupita Nyong’o. Some people may have imagined Helen as blonde and blue-eyed, but that is largely because northern Europeans have spent centuries painting ancient Greeks to resemble northern Europeans.

The Mediterranean was not an ethnic quarantine zone. Greeks, Trojans, Egyptians, Phoenicians and everyone else with access to a seaworthy boat had been travelling, trading, fighting and stealing one another’s ideas for a very long time.

And let us be practical. If a woman who looked like Lupita Nyong’o arrived in Bronze Age Sparta, every man in the place would have stopped what he was doing. The Trojan War suddenly becomes entirely believable.

That is not forced inclusion. That is casting Helen of Troy properly.

Elliot Page plays the very young soldier Sinon. Again, I saw no problem. Page looks exactly like a terrified young recruit who has suddenly realised that the senior officers have developed a plan involving a wooden horse, an enemy fortress and no discernible exit strategy.

Odysseus was rather harsh, however, in not telling Sinon exactly what was happening. Apparently, he wanted the young man’s fear to be authentic when the Trojans arrived.

But Elliot Page is an actor.

Could Matt Damon not simply have trusted Page’s acting ability instead of frightening the poor fellow nearly to death?

God.

John Leguizamo was also excellent. He has previously complained, with some justification, that Hispanic actors cannot win awards for substantial roles if substantial roles are never written for them.

Well, good for him. He was a champion.

He is a wog; one of us. In the affectionate Australian Wog Boys and Superwog sense: Greek, Italian, Lebanese, Hispanic: foreign boys whose families arrived with strong opinions, too much food and mothers who considered an empty stomach a personal insult

We are inclusive. Greek, Italian, Lebanese, Hispanic, Indian, black, white or ranga – it does not matter. From the perspective of old Anglo-Australia, we were all foreigners together.

I was pleased that Leguizamo got the role.

Circe Was My Mother

The best performance in the film, however, came from Samantha Morton as Circe.

One critic laughed when somebody compared her performance with Heath Ledger’s Joker. I can only assume that critic did not grow up with a Greek mother.

Morton’s Circe is the most accurate portrayal of a Greek woman I have ever seen on film.

First, she feeds the visitors.

Then she continues feeding them after they say they are full.

Then she becomes offended because they are not eating.

Then she complains that they never visit.

Then, after feeding them enough food for three days, she calls them gourounia – pigs.

I began to cry.

I could see my mother in Circe.

All that was missing was for her to remove her slipper, or cut a switch from a nearby tree and beat the piggy boys about the head and shoulders while shouting:

“Acharistoi! Ingrates! I cook all day and this is how you behave?”

The entire Schoolies expedition would have ended there.

No Cyclops. No Sirens. No descent into the underworld.

Just twelve Greek boys sitting silently around Circe’s table, staring at their plates while she explained, at length, everything that was wrong with them.

Afterwards there would have been ouzo, Greek coffee and baklava.

Then the boys would have offered to help clean up.

“No, no. You go. I clean.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, yes. Go now. And say hello to your mother for me. You never visit her. She tells me.”

Perfect.

Academy Award.

Athena, Curry and “Yesterday”

Zendaya plays Athena and spends much of the film appearing beside Odysseus and giving him the divine equivalent of tsk, tsk, tsk.

I did not entirely understand what she was doing, but by that stage everyone appeared to be tripping, so it hardly mattered.

Himesh Patel also fitted naturally into the expedition. Patel is of Gujarati Indian heritage, but there is no great cultural obstacle there. Indians have been part of Greek life for ages.

We have yiouvetsi. They have curry.

The similarities are obvious, apart from nearly all the spices.

It was historically believable enough for me.

I did keep waiting for Patel to sing “Yesterday” while contemplating one of Odysseus’s increasingly catastrophic decisions, but apparently that was a different movie.

It would nevertheless have worked.

“Yesterday, all our ships seemed here to stay…”

Nolan’s Serious Failure of Inclusion

I do have one complaint about the casting.

Christopher Nolan appears to have included almost everyone except an actual Greek.

That was a mistake.

A Greek actor, or even one Greek technical adviser, would have identified several serious cultural errors.

First, all the Greek ships appeared to be completely finished.

That is not how Greeks construct things.

You never finish the boat entirely, because the moment it is complete, somebody from the government may decide that tax is due.

You leave one small section unfinished.

Just a little section.

Nothing structural. Perhaps one decorative panel, one section of railing or a small piece of marble near the entrance.

Anyone who has stayed in a four-star Greek hotel will understand. The hotel may have operated successfully for twenty-seven years, but there will still be one missing marble panel in the foyer because the building is not, in the strict legal and philosophical sense, complete.

The same principle would have applied to the ships.

“Is the vessel finished?”

“No.”

“But it has crossed the Aegean, carried forty soldiers and survived a major storm.”

“Yes, but we still have to install this little trim piece.”

“No tax, then.”

“Correct.”

Nolan also failed to show the Greeks preferring to pay cash for supplies.

A real Greek adviser would have explained that cash is culturally important because it is normally associated with a discount whose exact basis nobody needs to discuss.

Odysseus should have spent at least one scene negotiating provisions.

“How much for the wine?”

“Ten drachmas.”

“And for cash?”

“Nine.”

“No receipt?”

“Eight.”

“That is better.”

These are the details that create authenticity.

Cultural Appropriation

Greeks are accustomed to cultural appropriation.

For centuries, Englishmen have taken Greek stories, Greek statues, Greek columns, Greek philosophy and large pieces of the Parthenon, then transported them to a cold, wet country whose citizens spend their holidays flying back to the Greek islands to find sunlight.

Nolan taking The Odyssey is therefore part of a long tradition.

Give us back the Marbles.

Himesh Patel might reasonably make a similar observation about certain jewels held by the British Crown.

But these are large political matters. My concerns were more immediate.

Why was nobody paying cash?

Why were the ships completely finished?

Why did Circe not have a slipper?

These are the subtle cultural failures that bothered me.

Otherwise, I thought Nolan captured the basic historical truth.

A group of Greek boys left home, got into a war, went on an extended Schoolies trip, consumed something questionable, encountered several women who were far too intelligent for them, lost nearly every piece of equipment entrusted to their care and eventually returned with a story so extraordinary that it became foundational Western literature.

That sounds entirely plausible.

I miss my mother.

I miss her cooking.

And, God help me, I miss her calling me a gourouni or a gaithouri.

Oh, and go home and pet your dog!