A man washes ashore on an island in Greece. He’s an older man, bearded, strong looking and naked. It appears he’s been to hell and back. His name is Odysseus, and the island is Ithaca, where his beloved Penelope, imprisoned, awaits his return. Italian filmmaker Uberto Pasolini’s “The Return” is a retelling of the latter books in Homer’s “Odyssey,” in which Odysseus, disguised as a beggar, and with the help of his son Telemachus, proves his identity and slays his wife’s suitors.
Hewing relatively closely to the major beats of the Ancient Greek epic, Pasolini’s film nonetheless puts a unique spin on the source material. “The Return” entirely excises the story’s flights of fancy and fantasy, eschewing its poetry for grounded realism. At the centre of the film is Ralph Fiennes as the elder Odysseus, ravaged by 20 years away at war and the tumultuous journey back.
The screenplay, written by Pasolini and John Collee and Edward Bond, exhibits more of a Shakespearean style than a classical one. Odysseus is even plagued by his own fearful procrastination — so Hamlet of him. The film also makes appeals to modernity, taking as its subject the horrors of war, and transforming the hero into something like a damaged veteran. The director said at TIFF, where the film premiered, that the script took inspiration from interviews with Vietnam veterans, and the film itself seems influenced by any number of Vietnam War dramas, including “The Deer Hunter” and “Born on the Fourth of July.” As in those films, Homer’s ancient poem becomes a story about the scars left behind by war, on the battle-worn warriors and everyone else in its wake.
Ralph Fiennes plays Odysseus in “The Return.”
Pasolini paces the film slowly, letting his actors and their environment — the film was shot in Greece and Italy — do a lot of the work to ground it all in naturalism. This is “The Odyssey” through a filter of historicity, but also relatability. Characters sit around discussing the toll of war, sounding not unlike people today. These scenes are compelling to a point, but the suggestion that the cruelty of war was ever thus is hardly a revelation, and all the talk of blood begins to wear thin.
Amid all that is the family drama, with Juliette Binoche playing Penelope, and Charlie Plummer as their hotheaded son Telemachus. Here the film struggles to modernize the story, leaving its old world ideas about family and romance feeling out of place despite the actors’ best efforts.
It is in Fiennes’ literally Stoic performance that the movie rediscovers some of Homer’s poetry. Looking appropriately haggard, his Odysseus is still in incredible physical shape, ready to be sculpted into marble. Pasolini allows him the space to express himself largely in poses, conveying his dramatic interior more through body language than his sparse dialogue.
Fiennes’s physicality also brings weight when he’s called to action. Late in the film, when Odysseus strings his bow and shoots an arrow through the holes in a dozen axe heads, his movements are slow, and Fiennes’s muscular arms visibly strain. Wordless, the sequence is quite captivating, and its tactile realism at last feels as if the film has brought something new to table.
And indeed, this is the question that kept running through my mind while watching “The Return.” Is this really bringing anything new to the table? “The Odyssey” has rarely been adapted for the screen, so it’s not a question of whether it’s worth attempting an adaptation, even in part, like this one. Rather, what is achieved by this reinterpretation of the Homeric epic in this style?
When Odysseus arrives on Ithaca and, hiding his identity, meets a swineherd, his own slave, and comes to stay with him and some of his other subjects, the old story expands to consider in a more real way the plight of those at the very bottom of society. But despite the attempts at historical verisimilitude, their lives end up being sketched-in more than fully rendered. Ditto the palace intrigue involving the suitors, which comes across a little too much like a theatre production.
Pasolini uses the landscapes of Corfu and the Peloponnese to good effect, wisely situating his realistic depiction within the story’s actual natural environment. Fiennes stands well against his surroundings, inhabiting a real space, but also looking iconic within it. Unfortunately, “The Return” doesn’t find more to do with these attributes than adequately play to modern sensibilities. Still, it has some strong moments, a few interesting enough ideas, and a central performance with great presence, which admittedly carries it home in the end.
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