In this episode, Dara is going full Greek as he embraces the epic telling and retelling of Homer’s The Odyssey, now Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. Notably, the film is being promoted not with a tagline, but with a declaration of the mode of its making – shot entirely on 70mm IMAX cameras! But is that the film’s only selling point? Surely not.
In an epic, spoiler-filled episode, Dara tries to reconcile the film version with the more faithful Homeric renderings of the adventures of Odysseus, with due reference to critiques not just of Nolan’s version of the ancient tale, but also of his entire body of work. Eventually other tellings of the story are also considered, including Uberto Pasolini’s 2024 film, The Return.
Finally, Dara tries to sum up what the lasting significance is of a story as old as The Odyssey. He digs out something he wrote 13 years ago in his attempt to nail it.