“ The Odyssey “ Review

 A good review 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

📚🎥中文翻譯：Original article links in the comment : 

羅斯·道薩特（Ross Douthat）於New York Time 發表關於克里斯托弗·諾蘭《奧德賽》一文的五點摘要：

1.  克里斯托弗·諾蘭的《#奧德賽》精準卡位當今文化戰爭。其源材料是少數幾乎所有意識形態陣營都想爭奪的西方經典——無論是覺醒派還是反覺醒派、男性主義者還是女性主義者、西方文明的捍衛者還是批評者，都想把奧德修斯據為己有。相比《伊利亞特》（過於男性）、《簡·奧斯汀》（過於女性）或希臘悲劇（過於沉重），幾乎人人都想分一杯羹。

2.  諾蘭卻有意以最平淡的形式呈現這份豐富素材。他剝除了情慾、感官性、諸神之爭，以及奧德修斯那過於膨脹的自我與魅力，代之以熟悉的美國戰爭片與西部片套路、青少年小說式對白，以及一層稀薄而高度籠統的道德說教。核心教訓被簡化成類似「當你違背宙斯的法則，文明就會崩塌」——實際上不過是把黃金法則套用在客人、狗和特洛伊人身上。

3.  正是這種平淡，成為它商業成功與文化影響力的關鍵。被剝離後的版本仍能在諾蘭嫻熟的調度下呈現壯觀場面（特洛伊木馬、獨眼巨人、血腥歸家），滿足大眾觀眾。與此同時，那種說教卻模糊的道德框架，格外容易讓任何觀眾把自己的世界觀投射上去。

4.  因此這部電影成了一張羅夏墨跡測試。道薩特勾勒了幾種看似合理卻相互矛盾的解讀：它可以被看作對特朗普主義下自由國際秩序危機的寓言；也可以是一位墮落天主教徒對基督教罪疚感以及基督教失敗後等待著的怪物的沉思；或者是民粹式伯克主義對歐洲移民與濫用好客傳統的警告。素材足夠稀薄，幾乎可以被任何意識形態慾望隨意塑形。

5.  就連批評者也在餵養這一現象。正是這種平淡既邀請投射，也激發激烈拒絕——從早期右翼對選角的抱怨，到冗長的左翼學術拆解（如艾米莉·威爾遜），再到右翼的輕蔑否定（如青銅時代變態）。道薩特指出自己寫一整篇專欄來討論一部他認為平淡的電影，本身就具有諷刺意味。在他看來，諾蘭真正的成就在於：把一部奠基性的西方文本重新框定在「西方文明或許已經終結」這一共同焦慮之上——既賺取了十億美元票房，也獲得了在未來數年主導文化討論的權力。

📚Here’s a clear 5-point summary of Ross Douthat’s essay from #NewYorkTime . 

1.  Christopher Nolan’s The #Odyssey is perfectly calibrated for today’s culture war because its source material is one of the few Western classics that nearly every ideological camp wants to claim — woke and anti-woke, masculinists and feminists, defenders of Western civilization and its critics alike. Unlike the Iliad (too male), Jane Austen (too female), or the Greek tragedies (too depressing), everyone wants a piece of Odysseus.

2.  Nolan deliberately serves this rich material in its blandest form. He strips away the sex, sensuality, warring gods, and Odysseus’s oversized ego and charisma, replacing them with familiar American war-movie and Western tropes, YA-novel dialogue, and a thin, highly general moralism. The central lesson reduces to something like “Civilization collapses when you violate Zeus’s law” — which turns out to be little more than the Golden Rule applied to houseguests, dogs, and Trojans.

3.  This very banality is the key to both its commercial success and its cultural power. The stripped-down version still delivers the spectacle (Trojan Horse, Cyclops, bloody homecoming) under Nolan’s skilled direction, satisfying mass audiences. At the same time, the didactic but vague moral framework is unusually easy for any viewer to project their own worldview onto.

4.  The film therefore becomes a Rorschach test. Douthat sketches several plausible but contradictory readings: an allegory for the crisis of the liberal international order under Trumpism; a lapsed-Catholic meditation on Christian guilt and the monsters that await if Christianity fails; or a populist Burkean warning about immigration and the abuse of hospitality in Europe. The material is thin enough to be molded by almost any ideological desire.

5.  Even the critics are feeding the phenomenon. The same blandness that invites projection also fuels passionate rejection — from early right-wing casting complaints, to lengthy left-leaning academic demolitions (e.g., Emily Wilson), to right-wing dismissals (e.g., Bronze Age Pervert). Douthat notes the irony that he himself is participating by writing a whole column about a film he finds banal. Nolan’s real achievement, in Douthat’s view, is delivering a founding Western text reframed around the shared anxiety that Western civilization may already be finished — earning him both a billion-dollar box office and the power to set the cultural conversation for years.