The Odysseey (Christopher Nolan, 2026)

 A more than 2,500-year-old epic in Ancient Greek and a film shot entirely on IMAX. Can that work together? It works remarkably well. I have to say that I watched the standard version, so my impression might have been different if I had seen it the way Nolan intended. I found the lighting problematic at times, as well as the sound mix.

First, the narrative structure. Nolan reminds us that the Odyssey was meant to be recited. The film starts with a bard introducing the hero Odysseus, but this version is interrupted almost immediately, giving us a hint that we might be seeing a different kind of hero. Let's see.

The Trojan War ended ten years ago. Most of the warriors have returned; only Odysseus and his men are still missing. As in the epic, his son Telemachus sets out to seek news of his father at the court of Menelaus. Menelaus' wife Helen was the reason the war started in the first place. Telemachus is also fleeing from a plot to murder him. Meanwhile, at Odysseus' court, a group of suitors is trying to persuade his wife Penelope to remarry—and her son, as the rightful heir, would only stand in their way.

So there is no news about Odysseus—not even for us—until he is eventually introduced. This also happens only after some time in the epic. Odysseus has washed up on the island of Calypso, where he spends seven of the ten years covered by the Odyssey. What happened before is told through flashbacks. Two different characters recount the earlier events, and while the result is occasionally a little clumsy, it works well overall.

Some of the creative decisions were heavily debated after the trailer was released. Some self-important people criticised the fact that Helen is dark-skinned. They argued about the shape of the ships, the American accents of the characters, and the absence of Greek actors. Guys, this is a myth. What would we gain if the film were spoken in Homeric Greek? Exactly—nothing. Demanding historical accuracy from a myth misses the point. Besides, dark-skinned Helen has barely two minutes of screen time. If that's a deal-breaker, this probably isn't the film for you..

And by the way: in Nolan's version, the gods interfere—or maybe they don't. Nolan leaves it deliberately ambiguous whether the gods truly intervene or whether Athena is simply a projection of Odysseus' traumatised mind. This Odysseus is not a conventional hero, but a man who questions his own responsibility. Yes, he is the cunning trickster, but he also realises that the Trojan Horse undermined the moral foundations of their civilisation. The Greeks won by betraying their own values. He feels responsible for those who were left behind, the forgotten casualties of the war. And he hopes that culture may yet experience a new dawn. 

An Odyssey for our time.