The Return

The Return, director Uberto Pasolini's adaptation of The Odyssey, forgoes mythical beasts and seafaring voyages, preferring to interrogate ideas of permission in fraying, familial relationships. Ralph Fiennes stars as Odysseus, the Ithacan king who washes up naked and newborn on his homeland's shores twenty years after abandoning his wife and child to go off to war then, according to the whispers that precede him, live with another woman. Posing as a beggar, Odysseus slowly circles his former household as unruly noblemen take full advantage of his absence. Trapped in the palace are Juliette Binoche's Queen Penelope and Charlie Plummer's Telemachus, the mother and son being pulled in different directions by the presence of these greedy suitors. Penelope is tired and wavering, apparently at least somewhat taken with Marwan Kenzari's Antinous, a ringleader among these slavering dignitaries who is proving to be the least boorish of a bad bunch. 

The would-be couple's dealings, which largely revolve around Antinous promising to divert attention away from Penelope's twilight deceptions, are suggestive of a much more equitable relationship than perhaps the Queen has been used to. With Antinous as her husband Penelope could expect to be a partner rather than a beloved subject, it seems. Comparatively, Telemachus, who has never known his father, boils with resentment; speaking to his mother with a level of reproachment that hints at a possessive, even sexual jealousy. He calls her a whore for transgressions that exist only in his head then, later, demands to be part of the contest that will decide Penelope's new husband. This unusual, even Oedipal arrangement of the young prince is underlined when, following Odysseus' resumption of rule, Telemachus leaves on his own adventures, declining to stay with his newly complete family. Odysseus, for his part, welcomes this absence. 

Before he's back in his marital bed though, the disguised and dawdling Odysseus must reckon with the idea that, actually, he isn't welcome home at all. Speaking to Penelope as a transient claiming to know her husband, Odysseus is pressed to answer questions about the sack of Troy. Did the King of Ithaca kill women and children? Did he give his men permission to pillage? Did Odysseus join in with these outrages? Did he indulge himself in rape? Odysseus' stunned silence here speaks volumes. Pressed to act only when the squatting noblemen make an attempt on Telemachus' life, Odysseus reveals both his identity and a gnarled, tightly knotted physique. As indirect and circuitous as the preceding 90 minutes have been, Pasolini's description of the climactic archery contest is thrilling. Odysseus' approach to the stringing of the bow he left behind demonstrating not just his physical strength but a thoughtful expertise when handling an uncooperative weapon; while his cold-blooded, almost mechanical murder of the defenceless suitors offers an alarming insight into how the Ithacan King may have dealt with the cowering citizens of Troy.