My Saturday afternoons as a kid were spent watching some of the most captivating old cinema depicting the Greek and the Roman mythos and repertoire which brought anticipation towards how The Return would approach these narratives. This ambitious recontextualization of the Odysseia by Homer, directed by Uberto Pasolini, has debuted in TIFF 2024. It bridges Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche, the leads of The English Patient, for a more morbid and more self reflective take on this classic, and it is, to say the least, it is a sight.
As always Fiennes passes a long absence in Ithaca and his gold Mycenaean throne returning after the Trojan War. Binoche portrays Penelope who has been constantly resisting lecherous invaders aspiring to conquer the island kingdom. The narrative of this film is based on the latter part of the Homeric poem, primarily the themes of post traumatic stress disorder as well as the relative obscurity surrounding the concept of homecoming.
I will be blunt: The Return is a slow and deliberate film that is careful to show how its characters’ personal problems relate to the central conflict of the story. This is not a film if you are looking for violence, needless sword and sandals action or deconstruction of a well known narrative with a new more graphic perspective. The Return is a good story that allows Ralph Fiennes to display he does with flair throughout the movie. Also, at this point in his career, Ralph Fiennes’ physique in this film puts many actors in their 20s to shame.
“The Return is a film in which its audience does not get bored because its filmmakers take their time in depicting their characters’ struggles.” The Return is a drama with a great deal of focus on the two main actors who are given ample time to prove how they are worthy of icons in the film industry. Fiennes and Binoche give quiet and thoughtful performances as Odysseus and Penelope and are able to say so much with their eyes and the gaps in their speeches. It is a stunning spectacle to behold, and even more stunning is how seamlessly it has been filmed over a period of 2 hours and a bit less than 2 mins.
The movie is, visually pleasing, but is not everyone’s cup of tea in terms of pacing. Before the couple meets again, a lot of waiting goes into it. The average viewer will have to go through a number of flashbacks and monologues, story arcs, and plans before the action kicks off. As with many motion pictures portraying tales from the olden times, this one too, is a quest, however the finale is not the key focus. The Return concentrates on the process, maybe, a little bit excessively so.
In observing The Return, however, two things keep springing to my mind, and those two things are strikingly detached from each other. For one, Pasolini’s adaptation depicts the distant kingdom torn apart by war, seeing a dreadful void and an even more dreadful illness which can only be healed through more war that is still brewing. And how witty the authors were to visually convey such a look! It is unbelievable how, with regardless of the costumes and the set’s design, they managed to achieve a style that evokes the visions of Ben Hur and Spartacus. And here we touch on the aesthetics of the picture and the production that caused for me a sense of deja vu, reminiscent of childhood, remarkable how one’s memory can play such tricks.
To say the film has remoted strands of golden era of Holywood in style would border on understatement. The Return, with its beautiful cinematography, provides an up close and personal look at the rugged and harsh beauty of this place and world. There are plenty of things which in this movie gave the impression of “less is more,” for example, Fiennes going around most times dressed only in a loincloth and sometimes absolutely nothing while Penelope herself was hardly in more elaborate surroundings.
The film’s visual style, in that case, is so austere as to serve and betters the performance rather than dilute it. This, however, can be considered excessively flatter for people expecting a movie of greater opulence and of this kind.
Fiennes and Binoche, had been acting great as actors giving weight to their respective characters. Close to thirty years after The English Patient, their bulking reunion attests to their chemistry’s and ability to show intricate emotions with grace. Even though they are both Ramos and Riley only come together on the same screen in the last act of the film, their chemistry is still obvious. It’s plausible to consider that these individuals have not been in contact for more than twenty years. The undercurrents of anger and affection both simmer unrealistically beneath the surface through every still.
The Return has many elements that I love and yet for the life of me I cannot appreciate it, not that every part of the film isn’t solid. The movie’s 116 minute time frame is too long, and that’s why it will be hard for most people who imagined a high octane saga such as The Odyssey. I understand why Pasolini’s approach to the war’s psyche and the character arcs is not universal in appeal. The film has a sincere message at its core, but ends up frustrating the audience in the transition from self centered dialogue to the center of the conflict.
The Return seems overambitious yet it tries to be polemical but unfortunately all to no avail It is not that hard, it reveals the big assortment of the cast and implementation of the director’s idea. Still, despite the fact that it couldn’t hit as much as I wished, for those who are ready to accept the great deal of introspection that this film brings, The Return manages to be a touching tribute to war, loss and rebuilding. Such an impression is worthy of such an attempt which is not without errors.
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