NOSTOS: THE RETURN
(NOSTOS: IL RITORNO)
Dir. Franco Piavoli, 1989
Italy. 87 min.
In a fictional language with no subtitles.

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Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story
of that man skilled in all ways of contending,
the wanderer, harried for years on end
—Robert Fitzgerald

Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns
driven time again off course
—Robert Fagles

Tell me about a complicated man.
Muse, tell me how he wandered and was lost
—Emily Wilson

For millennia, interlocutors have found diverse ways to interpret The Odyssey. Franco Piavoli’s version of the Homeric epic (his first fiction feature) translates its poetry through purely cinematic terms. The film forsakes literal intelligibility, its scant dialogue delivered in a conlang patois of dead languages, all unsubtitled. Piavoli takes for granted that we all know the story of Odysseus’ long journey home, even if we only recognize the broad strokes from its inescapable osmosis into popular culture. The movie’s episodes freely remix elements of the poem, its characters and events recalling rather than directly adapting the text, evoking the questing protagonist’s jumbled memory.

Piavoli aimed to create symphonic cinema, to express the timeless tale through vivid sensory experiences—the wine-dark sea, the terror of nature, the dread of war trauma, and above all else, the stubborn ache of homesickness. He conveys the myth in human terms while losing none of its wonder.

With a certain other adaptation of The Odyssey doing reasonably well around the world, Spectacle is thrilled to present this offbeat alternative to the blockbuster. Seldom screened and absolutely indelible, NOSTOS is not to be missed.

Special thanks to Steve Macfarlane and Cinecittà.