Paid Post: Film Review--"The Return"
Uberto Pasolini’s new film strips the divine from "The Odyssey," leaving behind a story that is searingly and hauntingly human.
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Warning: Full spoilers for the film follow.
The Return is one of those films that I’ve been waiting to see for literally months. In part, this is because it stars both Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche, two of my very favorite actors. In even greater measure, though, it’s because I have long loved The Odyssey, which is one of the most heart-wrenching and powerful books in the entire western canon. If you can read about the reunion of Odysseus and his wife Penelope–or, for that matter, the death of the dog Argos as soon as he sees that his master has returned–then I don’t think that you’re entirely human.
Though it wasn’t beloved by some critics, I found myself quite captivated by Uberto Pasolini’s take on the timeless story of Odysseus’ return to Ithaca and his resultant slaughter of the suitors who have made a mockery of his wife’s rule and subjected the island of Ithaca to their brutal reign of terror. The film strips the story down to its barest human elements, eschewing the presence of gods and goddesses that are a part of Homer’s tale. What we have here is, instead, a haunting and searing human story of trauma, reconciliation, forgiveness, and love.