Happy birthday Leah! Wishing you a restful and celebratory day (a very difficult combination to pull off for moms of little ones!)
With respect to the Odyssey, I really enjoyed it but I thought it was a very (for lack of a better word) godless telling. Zeus was invoked frequently but never shown, Poseidon was infrequently mentioned, Calypso was not portrayed as particularly powerful, and Athena seemed kind of like a hovering guardian angel rather than the relentless immortal advocate for Odysseus that she is in the poem (and if anyone wants to talk about that Athena/sack of Troy double image with me, I would very much like to hear your takes! My husband and I talked A LOT about that artistic choice on the drive home!) The only immortal that seemed at all powerful was Circe! I did like the bow-stringing bit though, and I thought the ending was particularly well done. Regret seems like a particularly un-heroic emotion in this version of the ancient world, and the fact that Odysseus came to regret some of his choices was fascinating to me, and tied the whole thing together in a way that I wasn't really expecting. I look forward to hearing thoughts from others, it is definitely a movie that rewards kibitzing!
Happy birthday Leah! Wishing you a restful and celebratory day (a very difficult combination to pull off for moms of little ones!)
With respect to the Odyssey, I really enjoyed it but I thought it was a very (for lack of a better word) godless telling. Zeus was invoked frequently but never shown, Poseidon was infrequently mentioned, Calypso was not portrayed as particularly powerful, and Athena seemed kind of like a hovering guardian angel rather than the relentless immortal advocate for Odysseus that she is in the poem (and if anyone wants to talk about that Athena/sack of Troy double image with me, I would very much like to hear your takes! My husband and I talked A LOT about that artistic choice on the drive home!) The only immortal that seemed at all powerful was Circe! I did like the bow-stringing bit though, and I thought the ending was particularly well done. Regret seems like a particularly un-heroic emotion in this version of the ancient world, and the fact that Odysseus came to regret some of his choices was fascinating to me, and tied the whole thing together in a way that I wasn't really expecting. I look forward to hearing thoughts from others, it is definitely a movie that rewards kibitzing!