In ‘The Return,’ Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche Aid Director Uberto Pasolini in Paying Homage to Homer

Pasolini spent 30 years whittling down Homer’s adventure story, using introductory intertitles and some awkward moments of exposition to give the uninitiated a sense of grounding.

Via Bleecker Street
Juliette Binoche in 'The Return.' Via Bleecker Street

How conversant does a movie-goer have to be with “The Iliad” or “The Odyssey” to enjoy Uberto Pasolini’s “The Return”? At the Upper West Side preview for the film, an executive from one of its production companies, Bleecker Street Media, introduced the picture by testifying to the ubiquity of Homer’s seminal works. Every student, he averred, had been assigned to read the epic poems at one point or another in their academic lives.

Not this student: The Utah State Board of Education had other fish to fry, notwithstanding that the Beehive State has the largest Greek population in the United States west of the Mississippi. Adulthood hasn’t helped: Individual attempts to crack Homer’s encompassing tale of heroic men, patient women, and capricious gods have been frustrating and fruitless. For this critic, “The Iliad” and “The Odyssey” have proven eminently resistable.

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