A song comes to mind from the seventies with a chorus that would be good advice to the script writers of The Return:
it goes like this:
You don't tug on Superman's cape,
You don't spit into the wind,
You don't pull the mask off that old lone ranger,
And you don't mess around with Homer's verse.
(OK, the ending of the last line was mine, not in the original song)
There are three stars that hold this movie together: The incomparable Juliette Binoche. The unparalleled Ralph Fiennes. And Homer's immortal story even if we only get to watch the end of that story, at the end of Odysseas' ten-year Odyssey.
Uberto Pasolini, Luchino Visconti's nephew, wrote the screenplay and directed. In messing with the script, he proved unworthy of running into a bottega to buy Homer a pack of Italian cigarettes. He missed the entire point of the Odyssey, the conclusion of which he committed to film. The point of the real Epic Poem is that Ithaca is not the homecoming; Ithaca is the journey. It is what the traveler has collected along the way, the wisdom, the knowledge, the experience of life that make him worthy of returning, of finally arriving at Ithaca. Of going home. According to signor Pasolini, the Odysseas in his film is ridden with guilt, insecurity and sadness. And young Telemachus' relationship with his mom, Penelope, and his dad, Odysseas in this telling, belongs on a Brooklyn analyst's couch.
But the performances by Binoche and Fiennes are amazing. Mesmerizing. They save the day, the journey and the movie. When you have these two to tell a story, you don't need editing shots together to tell the story; you just point a standard lens to either actor's face and roll the film (or digital, whatever). Their facial muscles and their eyes tell the story in all its depth. Pasolini's direction must be given some credit for the performances, salvaging him from the Hades his screenplay condemns him to.
It was shot on location on the Greek island of Corfu and the Peloponnese, also some locations in Italy. The real Ithaca is a small island next to and east of the island of Cephalonia right between Corfu and the Peloponnese, so why not shoot "Ithaca", well... in Ithaca? They were right there. Almost. So close.
The cinematography is great, if only too wintery and gloomy to convey Greece, and its spirit, ancient or modern. Thankfully, at least there were olive trees. And I very much doubt that ancient Greeks lived in black Bedouin tents. Odysseas palace in the movie is reminiscent of a medieval fortress. Any set designer worth one's ambition in construction costs would know that the Trojan War took place probably in the 13th century BCE, the end of the Minoan period, so Odysseas' palace should look more like Knossos Palace and less like the prison of Edmond Dantes.
Yes, I know, it's an adaptation. OK, I'll chill. I'll just take away the rare performances that make the two protagonists look and feel like you are watching Penelope and Odysseas rather than Juliette Binoche and Ralph Fiennes.
(OK, the ending of the last line was mine, not in the original song)
There are three stars that hold this movie together: The incomparable Juliette Binoche. The unparalleled Ralph Fiennes. And Homer's immortal story even if we only get to watch the end of that story, at the end of Odysseas' ten-year Odyssey.
Uberto Pasolini, Luchino Visconti's nephew, wrote the screenplay and directed. In messing with the script, he proved unworthy of running into a bottega to buy Homer a pack of Italian cigarettes. He missed the entire point of the Odyssey, the conclusion of which he committed to film. The point of the real Epic Poem is that Ithaca is not the homecoming; Ithaca is the journey. It is what the traveler has collected along the way, the wisdom, the knowledge, the experience of life that make him worthy of returning, of finally arriving at Ithaca. Of going home. According to signor Pasolini, the Odysseas in his film is ridden with guilt, insecurity and sadness. And young Telemachus' relationship with his mom, Penelope, and his dad, Odysseas in this telling, belongs on a Brooklyn analyst's couch.
But the performances by Binoche and Fiennes are amazing. Mesmerizing. They save the day, the journey and the movie. When you have these two to tell a story, you don't need editing shots together to tell the story; you just point a standard lens to either actor's face and roll the film (or digital, whatever). Their facial muscles and their eyes tell the story in all its depth. Pasolini's direction must be given some credit for the performances, salvaging him from the Hades his screenplay condemns him to.
It was shot on location on the Greek island of Corfu and the Peloponnese, also some locations in Italy. The real Ithaca is a small island next to and east of the island of Cephalonia right between Corfu and the Peloponnese, so why not shoot "Ithaca", well... in Ithaca? They were right there. Almost. So close.
The cinematography is great, if only too wintery and gloomy to convey Greece, and its spirit, ancient or modern. Thankfully, at least there were olive trees. And I very much doubt that ancient Greeks lived in black Bedouin tents. Odysseas palace in the movie is reminiscent of a medieval fortress. Any set designer worth one's ambition in construction costs would know that the Trojan War took place probably in the 13th century BCE, the end of the Minoan period, so Odysseas' palace should look more like Knossos Palace and less like the prison of Edmond Dantes.
Yes, I know, it's an adaptation. OK, I'll chill. I'll just take away the rare performances that make the two protagonists look and feel like you are watching Penelope and Odysseas rather than Juliette Binoche and Ralph Fiennes.