Despite three millennia passing since it was written, Homer’s “Odyssey” remains one of the most timeless tales ever told by man. As such, director Uberto Pasolini wanted to explore that concept in “The Return,” an adaptation of the final third of the story that has no gods or monsters, only humanity.
“To me, it was important to keep the focus on storytelling about the human emotions, the psychology of the humans, the difficulty of being human, the difficulty of being a good human. And that would have been difficult if every action, or most actions, of our characters were influenced or managed by the gods, as Homer has it in his poem,” Pasolini said at TheWrap’s 2024 TIFF Studio sponsored by Moët & Chandon and Boss Design.
In “The Return,” Ralph Fiennes plays Odysseus as he finally returns home 20 years after heading off for war and facing a perilous journey at the hands of the gods. But what he experienced is not as important to the story as the task that lies before him: proving to his people that he is still worthy of being their king and fending off the horde of suitors looking to take his power.
“[Homer] always spoke to me when I was a child. He speaks to me now, and he speaks to me in particular with respect to what it means to go to war, what it means to leave your family, what it means for the family that is left behind and what it means for the difficulty of a family to get together again,” Pasolini shared.
Juliette Binoche also stars in the film as Odysseus’ wife Penelope, who maintained hope that the Greek hero would return even as Ithaca crumbled around them and the pressure to remarry mounted. Despite that faith, the weight of Odysseus’ absence is heavy upon them, leaving the dialogue between them very sparse in a way that Binoche appreciated.
“It was exciting because every single word meant something,” she told TheWrap. “I always feel that you’ve got to find the root of why you need to say those words. It’s not coming out of your head, it’s coming out of your guts and heart.”
Binoche felt that Pasolini’s story was written with that in mind and felt grateful that she was able to be a part of a movie that was so important to the director.
“Sometimes you have one film in your life and it felt very much that it was really his major important film,” she said. “When you feel that, that every single stitch on the cloth or the color of this and that, that it was so meaningful to him, then it just lifts the need as an actor, to find inside of you something that’s beyond anecdote; that’s beyond what’s obvious.”
“The Return” will be released by Bleecker Street on Dec. 6. Watch the interview in the clip above.
