More than three millennia have passed since the works attributed to Homer emerged, yet no subsequent era, including our own, has knocked them off their pedestal. They are undeniably among those timeless cultural monuments whose aura remains inexhaustible and whose power of fascination remains intact. The place that the Odyssey occupies in recent news, through the latest film directed by Christopher Nolan, is further proof of this strength. Perhaps it is because this breathless epic still possesses that spirit which inspires respect and allows it to speak to all generations.
Christopher Nolan thus offers us, despite controversies over wokism, another opportunity to savor the journey of Ulysses. Cinema becomes the medium, the channel from which great lessons on life or the human condition can flow. The ten-year journey back to Ithaca, thwarted many times after the ten years of the Trojan War, will speak to us once again. But unlike in the past, it now benefits from the power of buzz. This film, which is currently flooding social networks, will offer those under twenty, as well as the older generation, knowledge of this Homeric narrative and its inexhaustible potential as a source of existential reflection.
Admiring Ulysses means witnessing the deployment of his intelligence, the same that, some time earlier, imagined the formidable stratagem of the Trojan Horse. Watching Nolan’s film will therefore also be a true contemplation of the manifestation of this intelligence, or ‘metis’, which gains the upper hand over brute force. Seeing Ulysses, who knows how to use his reason to adapt to different situations, can speak to us at least as much as reading Aristotle’s texts on ‘phronesis’, the ability to find the right action at the opportune moment. Penelope’s fidelity is also a model of heroism that time has never been able to erase.
‘Do not shorten your journey: / it is better that it lasts for many years, / and that you finally arrive at your island in your old age, / rich with all that you have gained along the way, / without expecting Ithaca to enrich you,’ wrote the Greek poet Constantine Cavafy. These verses highlight the inestimable value of the journey, reminding us that the path often has more importance than the goal itself. Experiencing the journey, whether it is the odyssey to Ithaca or the path strewn with the experiences of our own lives, constitutes our true source of wealth.
Captured & Published at: 2026-07-20 06:27:23 (Madagascar Local Time EAT)
Original Source: https://www.lexpress.mg/2026/07/souffle-homerique.html