40/45
After 20 years, Odysseus finally returns to Ithaca, where he finds his wife a prisoner of pretenders fighting for the kingship and his son facing death at their hands. To get back his family and everything he lost, Odysseus must find his strength again. This is the third time that Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche have acted together in a film. They also worked together in Wuthering Heights (1992) and The English Patient (1996). Penelope: How can men find their way to war but not find their way home? Ulysses: For some, war becomes home. Focused on attachment. Looking at the multi-factorial pain and suffering of Penelope and Odysseus after Odysseus returns home to Ithaca, this thesis felt it necessary to explore quite systematically the challenges that many soldiers face after returning from active duty, including PTSD and other mental health issues to their past lives in family and society and flashbacks of memories and pain suffered and caused, and resulting internal change that is irreversible. The Return has a wide variety of actors behind it to allow the viewer to experience this rollercoaster ride of two key characters to remarkable heights. The latter is due to the unique and remarkable endurance of both Penelope and Odysseus at this difficult stage of life. and without each other’s support. In fact, the two are kept fairly separate for most of the build, making the catharsis stronger in the later, more intense, thriller-like part of the slower-burning film. Fiennes brings to this work his unique style of depicting suffering. She complements his impressive repertoire of his juxtaposition of pain and anguish in Spider and The End of the Affair. Binoche is the perfect choice for Penelope, as the viewer might be tricked into feeling and hoping that the two would meet again in the same way they were sent off in The English Patient, and Pasolini takes advantage of this to heighten the tension this works for those whose memory of The English Patient is vivid. This is a great and very meaningful job that requires experience!