Photo © Bleecker Street
Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche in ‘The Return’
Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche in ‘The Return’
One of the most storied tales from Greece, The Odyssey, is an epic poem on the long dangerous journey and homecoming of soldiers returning from war. Director Uberto Pasolini’s The Return retells that story, retaining its ancient setting while omitting the intervention of demigods and non-human monsters. He leaves out the journey and begins with the homecoming.
The Return stars Ralph Fiennes as Odysseus, King of Ithaca, and Juliette Binoche as his wife Penelope. They have been separated for 20 years after he left to fight in the war against Troy. He’s so changed, so scarred by conflict and time, that she’s doesn’t recognize him.
Their problems don’t start or end there. The royal castle on a rocky summit, more stony stronghold than palace, is besieged by suitors demanding her hand in marriage. Odysseus has been dismissed as dead, missing in action from the Trojan War. Penelope refuses to accept this loss (or is she staving off the unwanted advances of her stalkers?). Wearing a face of sad determination, Penelope weaves a shroud at her loom, stating that she will choose her next husband from among the suitors once the shroud is done. But each night she backtracks, tearing out strands of yarn, delaying, dragging her feet.
Odysseus doesn’t reveal his identity after he’s found, washed up on the shore, by the kindly swineherd Eumaeus (Claudio Santamaria). The pain his face reveals is more than physical. He is disturbed to recall that he set a city on fire and drenched the flames with the blood of its people. He listens at the fireside as the locals tell tales of the Trojan War, the oral tradition gathered in later centuries as The Odyssey by the legendary bard Homer. And he adds a few discordant words about the “heroism” of war. Perhaps he doesn’t identity himself because he loathes himself?
The Return moves at the go-by-foot pace of the archaic culture it depicts, but tension is palpable and gradually mounts into full drama. The suitors encamped around the castle are greedy thugs, killers, reprobates. They mock and threaten Odysseus’ son Telemachos (Charlie Plummer), who by the way despises his absent father. It’s not clear whether Penelope is putting off her remarriage from devotion to Odysseus or disdain for the bad choices society has handed her. The island of Ithaca has been looted by the criminal suitors. The barns are empty, the people impoverished and frightened. Odysseus is finally moved to act.
Pasolini makes good use of the rocky, tree-covered Greek settings. His compositions inside the dark castle are brilliant contrasts of candlelight and shadow. There is blood on the rippling tide and the fabric on Penelope’s loom is almost tangible. Fiennes and Binoche have been paired together before in The English Patient and Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights and the depth of their abilities are on full display. Like great actors from the silent movie age, they have faces.
