In waiting for Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of “The Odyssey,” I’ve felt a lot of anticipation – as I’m sure many of us have – for certain set pieces. Whether it be Odysseus’s encounter with the man-eating cyclops Polyphemus, or with Charybdis and Scylla in the ocean, there’s a certain excitement in knowing that Nolan, a great director of huge, action moments, would be taking these moments on.
But, as the film rolled on, I found myself more taken with the smaller scenes – one in particular that feels more in line with what Nolan wants to say using this centuries-old epic. When Odysseus (Matt Damon) and his crew pass by the sirens – beautiful creatures who use their voices to lure sailors to their deaths – he has his crew put wax into their ears to resist the sirens’ song. But Odysseus, angling to become the first person to have heard the sirens and lived, asks his crew to tie him up to the mast, making them promise to not let him go no matter how much he begs.
When we think of a siren’s song, we think of something beautiful, but throughout the encounter Odysseus appears to be in exceptional pain – turns out, seduction is unbearable when you can’t reach out and grab the thing you want. In Homer’s story, the sirens promise Odysseus infinite wisdom. But here, Odysseus describes what he heard as something more tactile than knowledge – it’s his desire to return home paired with his desire for glory, the idea of himself as a hero butting up against the real horrors of war. It’s everything he wants, but cannot have. Everything he is, the contradictions of which he cannot square inside himself.
He nails down the essence of the song as such: “It’s the sound of all the promises I failed to keep.”
Read Sammie’s full list on Rough Draft
