THE ODYSSEY (1997)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *sociological, metaphysical*

Sometimes, a critic’s opinion of a given work may change over time, due to changes in the critic’s evaluative priorities. On the other hand, sometimes just the act of having to justify one’s preferences in logical terms makes all the difference.

My recent back-to-back viewing of 2000’s JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS and 1997’s THE ODYSSEY—both two-part telefilms produced by the Hallmark Company—proves apposite. When I first saw THE ODYSSEY broadcast, I thought it was about as good a translation of Homer’s epic poem as one was likely to see on television. In contrast, in 2000 I thought JASON incredibly bland. But in my review, I found the later telefilm a little more engaging, despite offering a mixed bag, while THE ODYSSEY proved, frankly, rather boring.

Director Andrew Konchalovsky, best known for his action-films like RUNAWAY TRAIN and TANGO AND CASH, co-wrote the script for this adaptation of the epic. The Russian director brought to the project a greater sense of visual style than one usually sees in overlong telemovies, so ODYSSEY never feels as calculated and antiseptic as the average Hollywood historical film. From the start of the film, we see the hero’s homeland Ithaca as a dusty rural community, where people’s clothes look lived-in and the women don’t all look like models. Odysseus himself (Armand Assante) looks more rugged than handsome, and he only reluctantly accepts the command of the goddess Athena to leave his people and pursue the heroic destiny of the Trojan War.

After the hero bids farewell to his faithful wife Penelope and his infant son Telemachus, ODYSSEY necessarily skips over the events of the ILIAD, aside from alluding to the centrality of Achilles to that narrative. After the Greeks maintain their siege of Troy for ten years, Odysseus conceives of the Trojan Horse stratagem—and at this point, Konchalovsky departs from tradition. The god Poseidon intervenes to make certain that the stratagem succeeds, resulting in the Fall of Troy. Yet Odysseus, a borderline skeptic despite his belief in the gods’ existence, fails to give thanks to Poseidon. Thus, the sea-god curses Odysseus to spend five more years at sea because of religious neglect, in contrast to what Homer says, that Odysseus incurs Poseidon’s curse after slaying the god’s Cyclops-son Polyphemus. (As if to efface Homer’s version, the telefilm script has the Cyclops allude to his breed being the offspring of sea-nymphs.)

For those next five years, Odysseus and his Ithacan sailors endeavor to return home, encountering one episodic menace after the other. Understandably, Konchalovsky omits some of these perils, putting the greatest emphasis on (1) the fight with the Cyclops, (2) the meeting with Aeolus, God of the Winds, and (3) Odysseus’ protracted dalliances with two sorceresses, Circe and Calypso. Personally, I would have left out Calypso, since she duplicates the temptation of the better-known Circe, offering the mortal hero a chance at immortality if he will forget his wife languishing on Ithaca.

Meanwhile, back at the homeland, Penelope and her fifteen-year-old son Telemachus cope with multiple suitors who intrude upon the hospitality of Odysseus’s estate. Penelope holds fast to the belief that her husband will one day return, despite the fact that other Greek survivors have long returned to their hearths. Telemachus feels irate with the uninvited guests, and eventually Athena counsels the youth to go forth looking for his father. However, since father and son are not fated to meet until Odysseus returns to his island, this doesn’t work as well in the telefilm as it did in the epic.

Though Konchalovsky handles the physical action of Odysseus’s trials well, he proves incapable of giving the more fantasy-based sequences a sense of visual enchantment. The respective palaces of Circe, Calypso and Aeolus look cheap, lacking the panache of even simple sword-and-sandal productions from the sixties. An even more regrettable failing is that someone in production made some very poor choices in casting. Quirky types like Bernadette Peters and Michael J. Pollard just don’t fit period fantasy-films, and although some actors transition to the ancient world better, Konchalovsky doesn’t give them good dramatic arcs of their own. They all exist to enhance or impede Odysseus’s course, nothing more—and though Assante makes a good Odysseus, he can’t do it all alone. Even the 1955 ULYSSES gave the supporting players more vigor.

The closest Konchalovsky comes to realizing a theme come toward the end, when he nears Ithaca, but is once more prevented from reaching his home by Poseidon. Odysseus has a Job-like moment—nowhere in the epic—where he demands the god tell him what he wants. Poseidon speaks from the waves and tells the mortal what he wants Odysseus to say—but then the god simply breaks off and allows the hero to reach Ithaca without demanding full contrition. After this inconclusive confrontation between god and man, the conclusion, in which Odysseus and Telemachus slay the impertinent suitors, proves a letdown. Konchalovksy is at his strongest when he has his hero speak of his devotion to his family. But when he has to navigate the strange shores of fantastic domains, he’s even more lost than Odysseus.