In terms of TV years, the 1997 miniseries The Odyssey, directed by Andrei Konchalovsky, feels like something of a relic. As for the story itself, Homer’s great epic has no expiration; its themes, adventures, lessons, and insights are endlessly entertaining and profoundly enlightening. Capable of speaking to every age, Homer’s story of nostos shows a man on a mission: a human being longing to experience the irreplaceable delights of home, but first needing to undergo a perilous journey of trials and temptations.
Considering the remarkably long life of the story — well over two and a half millennia — it’s both astonishing and humbling to consider that Homer (circa 8th century BC) could dazzle the minds of listeners with material that is still every bit as satisfying today. The Odyssey is one of those stories that has enough fuel and substance to be told again and again — whether via the screen, stage, novel, or myriad other forms.
With the current state of the TV-show experience — huge budgets; bold and experimentative storytelling; viewers who love to suck down a whole series in a weekend — the story of the Odyssey would be ripe picking for a thoroughly developed and tantalizingly addictive 21st-century production.
That said, presenting Homer’s epic is no walk in the park, even though it contains some of the most entertaining scenes in all of Western literature. While the lawless, man-eating Cyclops might be a field day for a special effects team, a director is faced with an array of difficult choices in terms of what episodes to include from Homer’s Odyssey, what psychological aspects to emphasize, what moral and political dilemmas to shine a light on, and a host of other vexing decisions. Homer’s story is replete with so much rich material that, somewhat ironically, some adaptations end up feeling flat and entirely unremarkable.
That’s more or less the case with this production. Viewers see the physical and psychological chaos of Odysseus’s journey home from Troy — his time with beautiful goddesses, his trip to the underworld, the perils of sea travel, etc. — but not with any particular gusto or profundity. Indeed nothing stands out about the series, and it’s all a bit cursory; too many scenes touch upon, but never deeply explore, the psychological depths of the human experience that are so masterfully illuminated in Homer’s epic.
To the movie’s credit, there are a few poignant scenes which powerfully capture human folly and our twisted ability to interfere with our own goals — as when, for example, Odysseus sees his dilapidated ship on the coast of Circe’s island, realizing (for the first time) just how long he’s been hanging around the home — and bed — of the sensual goddess.
But these moments are few, and large portions of the story are much too lifeless. Telemachus’s story, in particular, feels underdeveloped and consequently all too underwhelming. We sense the dynamics of his fraught situation — his father likely dead, the wanton and violent suitors wreaking havoc in the palace — but don’t experience the transformation of boy to man on any nuanced or particularly affecting level.
Partly this seems to be a matter of how his story is presented. We don’t see Telemachus visit Nestor’s Pylos at all (not a huge deal), but the scene in which we do see him visit Menelaus and Helen is far too brief and unsubstantial (a much bigger deal). Nestor and Menelaus — close acquaintances of his Telemachus’s father from war time in Troy, and figures whom Athena encourages him to visit — are, in Homer’s epic, pivotal for the boy’s maturation. Because these scenes have such a limited or non-existent place in the film, the presentation of Telemachus’s character suffers.
As for Penelope’s character, she doesn’t fare much better, though some of her interactions with Telemachus, Anticlea, and other figures in her domestic coterie are presented endearingly.
But part of the great satisfaction of encountering Penelope in Homer’s Odyssey comes toward the end, in the many suspenseful scenes after Odysseus has returned to Ithaca (disguised as a beggar). This puts husband and wife in close physical proximity but at a kind of psychological distance, as the tension and complexity of two spouses finally being near each other after two decades apart builds and builds.
A director could have fun with this dynamic in all kinds of ways. But the treatment it receives in this film is surprisingly dull. For that matter, none of the recognition scenes contain much power; some of them are particularly unaffecting, due, in part, to how quickly and superficially they play out.
This is a disappointment, but not a calamitous failure for the film. The three-hour series is fun, even if it doesn’t strike many truly powerful chords. With as many gems contained in Homer’s Odyssey, it’d be difficult to make a production which isn’t palatable enough. But it is all too easy to present the story in a way that lacks the psychological depth that readers encounter while digesting Homer’s epic — that visceral and elucidating picture of what it means to be a social being in a world full of choice and complexity.
Spectatio 