43/19
After 20 years, Odysseus finally returns to Ithaca, where he finds his wife held captive by suitors vying to become king, and his son facing death at their hands. To reclaim his family and all he has lost, Odysseus must rediscover his strength. This is the third time Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche have starred together in a film. They also worked together in Wuthering Heights (1992) and The English Patient (1996). Penelope: How can people find their way to war, but not their way home? Odysseus: For some, war becomes home. Focused on immersion. the viewer in the multi-factorial pain and suffering of Penelope and Odysseus during Odysseus’ return home to Ithaca, this treatise felt the need to explore quite systematically the challenges that many soldiers face upon returning from active duty, including post-traumatic stress disorder and other health problems, mental health, reintegration into their former lives in family and society, and flashbacks of memories and pain endured and inflicted, and the resulting internal change that is irreversible. The Return is powered by a wide variety of actors to allow the viewer to experience this roller coaster ride that the two key characters climb to considerable heights, the latter thanks to the unique and special resilience of both Penelope and Odysseus at this difficult time in their lives. and without support from each other. In fact, the two are kept quite separate for most of the build-up, which makes the catharsis stronger in the later, more intense, thriller-like part of the slower-burning film. Fiennes brings his unique style of portraying suffering to this work – a great extension of his wonderful skill set from his neighboring depictions of pain and anguish in Spider and The End of the Affair. Binoche is the perfect choice for Penelope, as the viewer can be somewhat tricked into feeling and hoping that the two will come together in much the same way they were close in The English Patient, and Pasolini uses this to create additional tension in this work for those whose memory of the English Patient is still alive. This is a great and very relevant work that needs to be experienced!