The recently released film by Christopher Nolen The Odyssey has opened up many cultural conversations and commentaries. I’m not much of a social media and news follower, but it seems that there hasn’t been a film so much talked about in some time. This is good. A public engaged in images, emotions, and ideas means internal processing – thinking – about reality and our engagement with it. The film has certainly struck a chord with the audience.
I saw it on IMAX 70mm. I have many thoughts and mixed emotions, and I’m still processing what I saw. I’m the kind of film goer who reads the book first before seeing the film, and since I remembered almost nothing of Homer’s Odyssey (honestly I don’t think I read it in school, although I did read The Iliad), I listened to it on audiobook before going to the cinema. I also held out on watching commentaries until seeing the film, and then I delved into the different opinions of critics and audience.
Last night as I started writing my thoughts about my experience of the film, I realized I’m still processing it, and it would take me days of re-writing to work out my exact feelings.
The main thing that struck me was this: There is nothing special about the film, yet it has been hailed as a great technical and artistic work. For me this shows how low the bar of artistic achievement has come, and how hungry our society is for true artistic creation.
Art and the Invisible 