Nolan’s Odyssey: Running Away From Home
Note: This writing contains spoilers for Nolan’s Odyssey. It is also simply my own interpretation of the film. It is worth noting that Nolan’s Odysseus itself is an interpretation and reimagining of Homer’s Odyssey. What follows is therefore an interpretation of an interpretation.
In Nolan’s Odyssey, the journey wasn’t merely an adventure story of a war crew — or Odysseus — finding its way back home. Well, yes, on the surface, it appears to be exactly that. However, I see it a little differently. In fact, I would like to propose the exact opposite: that Nolan’s Odyssey is about a man running away from home. Not from Ithaca, but from himself, from what he had done, what he had become, and what he knew he could not yet face.
Home here, then, is not a place. It is reconciliation: a coming to terms with oneself, with where one has been, what one has done, and where one stands in the present moment. Ithaca was always there. It was Odysseus who wasn’t ready to arrive.
Choosing Ogygia
We know from the sirens’ call that Odysseus did not want to return home. During his time on Ogygia, while Calypso indeed fed Odysseus lotus leaves to relieve his pain, Nolan also portrays Odysseus as consuming the lotus leaves himself subsequently in order to forget, to run away, to deny. Here, Nolan portrays Calypso not as a captor, but as someone who actually nursed Odysseus back to health. It was Odysseus who had not wanted to leave.
With Calypso’s prompting, Odysseus eventually remembered his past. The irony that follows is the smooth journey back to Ithaca. There was no treacherous voyage. Odysseus simply surrenders, and the waves carry him home. Perhaps it was because the gods have decided that it was time. Or, perhaps it was because Odysseus has finally stopped running away.
Returning home
Even as Odysseus returns to Ithaca, he does so in disguise as a beggar for his own safety, having been warned earlier by Agamemnon. But there is something more than caution in that disguise. Odysseus arrives in Ithaca as a beggar, not as a king or a celebrated war hero. And perhaps that is exactly right. Because though he has arrived in Ithaca, he is not yet home.
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In his monologue, Odysseus recounts his guilt over Troy. A fight turned into a hunt. This is an interesting contrast to how the film introduces him. At the start, the movie portrayed Odysseus as a righteous man, one who, even in his hunt, ensured a fair game. Before each hunt, he flicks his bow as a warning to his prey, showing an act of mercy. Yet contrast this with another hunt, one within the walls of Troy. There was no warning, just pure deceit. No mercy was shown that night when the Greeks tore down the civilisation of Troy. Men were killed, women and children were taken captive, and Zeus’ law was defiled.
When Penelope asks Odysseus, “Are you from the sea?”, Odysseus says yes — even though throughout the film, both the crew and cities speak of the “sea people” with fear. Were the sea people actually the Greeks themselves? We do not know. But the sea people stand for more than a physical group. They are a concept: lawlessness, anarchy against the gods, and the defilement of all that is sacred.
It was with his recount that Odysseus came face to face with his sins. Finally, after years of running, he has arrived home.
Yet let us not mistake this homecoming for redemption, nor Odysseus for a hero. He was a war criminal, a murderer, a deceiver. Though he saw himself as a fair and righteous man, as someone who obeys Zeus’ law, at Troy, both identities were broken.
But Odysseus was also a father, a husband, a mere man. Throughout the film, the goddess Athena is portrayed as a reflection of his conscience — a constant, quiet reminder of his guilt. But that guilt exists only because of the totality of who Odysseus is: his many roles, his belief in Zeus’ law, his actions before Troy, and what he became within its walls. Home, then, is not the erasure of any of these parts. It is the reconciliation of all of them. Only when Odysseus is finally able to hold all of that together is he able to restore his kingdom. No longer as a beggar, but as the king of Ithaca.
Troy still lives
Today, the destruction of Troy continues. Civilisations continue to be scorched, children killed, women enslaved. We are not Odysseus; we did not participate in the wars and murders. But do we recognise that God’s law is being broken?
While our Christian God’s law and Zeus’ law are not the same, both carry the same core essence: hospitality, the sacredness of human life, and the sacred bonds between people. Secular ethics are built on these principles too. But for a Christian, their violation is far more than the mere loss of a physical body or culture or whatever utility value we attach to a human life. It is a violation of all that is beautiful and created in accordance with God’s law. Do we grieve that they are broken?
Or are we still eating the lotus, living in a comfortable false reality, choosing to forget, choosing to run? Odysseus could not restore his kingdom until he first sat at the feet of his wife and faced what he had done. The sacred comes before the secular. We cannot uphold what is broken around us if we have not first come home within ourselves.
Are we home?
