film – Culture Weekly

Ithaca: The Return – The Cost of War and the Power of Penelope’s Silence

By Ketty Iannantuono, Postdoctoral researcher at Radboud Institute for Culture & History

After many years of absence, a man returns home, carrying with him the trauma of war. His wife has patiently waited for him, never losing hope but struggling to keep their home from falling apart. Their distraught son has lived in his father’s myth. Now, they must all come to terms with the less-than-heroic return of an old man: he has survived, but at an extremely high cost. This could easily be a story set in the present, yet it is based on a tale written over three thousand years ago. This is Homer’s Odyssey, as reimagined by Uberto Pasolini in his new film, Ithaca: The Return.

Rather than recounting the epic of Odysseus’ great journey – the kind of story previously adapted for the screen in Camerini’s and Bava’s Ulysses (1954), Rossi’s Odissea (1968), the Coen brothers’ O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), or the forthcoming Christopher Nolan blockbuster The Odyssey (set for release in summer 2026) – Pasolini’s Ithaca: The Return opts for an intimate retelling of the classic myth, focusing solely on the last books of the poem (Od. XIII-XXIII). The story is stripped of all the adventures, nymphs, monsters, and gods, and this absence feels strikingly deliberate.

The narrative centers on Odysseus’ (Ralph Fiennes) νόστος – his return to his homeland, where he arrives shipwrecked and naked, one ordinary day. More than a hero, he is a veteran, burdened with the guilt of having lost all his comrades in war. His many years of wandering are only hinted at, not as challenges to be overcome by craftiness and deception or as persecutions inflicted by envious gods, but as the result of his profound alienation and his inability to reclaim control over his life after the absurdity of the Trojan War, which, like every other war – then and now – upends the meaning of all things. For much of the film, Fiennes’ Odysseus is helpless: he barely speaks, hides in the shadows, and witnesses the devastation of his home and family. Meanwhile, his wife Penelope (Juliette Binoche) and son Telemachus (Charlie Plummer) are left with the burden of defending his throne from suitors who are pressuring the queen to remarry. As in the original text, Penelope stalls them by claiming she will choose a suitor only once she has completed the shroud she is knitting for her ailing father-in-law. In reality, she secretly spends her nights unraveling the shroud, buying Odysseus more time to return.

A fundamental theme of the film is the struggle to reconstruct one’s identity, a quintessential Odyssean topos: that of becoming “Nobody.” Returning home with clear signs of grappling with PTSD – at the premiere of the movie in Milan, Pasolini has mentioned reading Vietnam War veterans’ diaries while writing the script – Odysseus struggles to fit back into his old life. Yet, those closest to him recognize him almost immediately: Eumaeus (Claudio Santamaria), who soon understands who the old beggar is; the dog Argos, who has waited twenty years, only to die upon his master’s return; Euriclea (Angela Molina), who recognizes him by his scar; but above all, Penelope, who only needs a glance at the stranger to know that her husband has returned. She doesn’t need any further confirmation of his identity and devises the challenge of the bow not to test the stranger facing her but to push her husband to piece together the fragments of his existence and reclaim his role.

Seemingly in contrast to the Homeric poem (though I can’t help but think of the verses in Book 1, where Odysseus’ son expresses frustration and uncertainty about his identity, unsure of who his father really is despite what others say; cf. Od. I, 200-210), Telemachus refuses to accept that the veteran is his long-lost father. The man before him bears no resemblance to the hero he has heard about since childhood, evoking conflicting feelings of hatred, resentment, and humiliation. But when Telemachus finally sees Odysseus fighting mercilessly and resolutely in the palace hall, violently exterminating the suitors as per the script, he “finds” him again – and in doing so, finds himself and his place in the world.

The Absence of Gods and the Focus on Human Responsibility

In Ithaca: The Return, we are faced with a plausible story, set in a convincingly reconstructed Homeric society that parachutes us into believable Hellenistic Middle Ages, where the aristocracy is in turmoil and power struggles are violent. The film is marked by intense performances –especially from Fiennes and Binoche, who communicate deeply through their tormented yet powerful silences – and a visually striking atmosphere. The exterior shots, often set in rugged locations – shot in Corfu and in the Peloponnese – create a sense of isolation and mystery, contrasted with the claustrophobic palace scenes, which represent a prison-like environment for the protagonists. In almost every frame, both exterior and interior, the sea remains visible, reminding us of the island setting. This serves as a powerful metaphor for the deep isolation experienced by all the characters. Each man (and woman) is an island, bearing the consequences of their actions alone.

In Pasolini’s film, there are no gods swooping in to resolve conflicts. This decision transforms the film from a simple retelling of an ancient myth into a poignant commentary on the human cost of violence and war. With the gods entirely absent, the film places the full weight of Odysseus’ choices squarely on his shoulders. The consequences are real, personal, and deeply felt by everyone involved.

Penelope: More Than Just the Waiting Wife

In the original poem, Penelope is primarily a symbol of patience and fidelity, waiting for Odysseus’ return. While her devotion is admirable, it often reduces her to a secondary character defined solely by her relationship to him.

Feminist scholarship on the Odyssey emerged in the 1990s, shedding light on Penelope’s agency and intelligence. Scholars like Helene Foley (1978), John Winkler (1990), Nancy Felson (1994) and Barbara Clayton (2004), have pointed to Penelope’s role as a clever counterpart to Odysseus. After all, she manipulates the suitors, “weaves her shroud,” and subtly collaborates with her husband’s plot. On the other hand, other feminist scholars have examined the extent to which the Odyssey truly highlights, empowers, or praises women. Lillian Doherty (1995) argues that while the epic’s strong female characters may engage female audiences, they lack significant agency within a male-centered narrative. Sheila Murnaghan (1986; 1995) and Ingrid Holmberg (1995) have contended that Penelope is essentially powerless, her actions controlled by Odysseus and the goddess Athena, who is associated with male power. Other scholars, such as Marilyn Katz (1991), Victoria Wohl (1993), Seth Schein (1995), and Froma Zeitlin (1995), have noted that the Odyssey often challenges the concept of female virtue, particularly through Penelope’s potentially ambiguous actions toward both the suitors and Odysseus. Rachel Lesser (2017; 2018) argues that Penelope’s combination of disempowerment and subjectivity – autonomous yet devoted to her husband – reinforces the Odyssey’s patriarchal ideology.

Pasolini’s adaptation offers a fresh perspective. Penelope is presented as a central character in her own right, with her struggles, strengths, and complexities. She not only waits but also manages the household – handling finances, making key decisions, and defending her home from suitors. She controls her own destiny and even has a say in whether she will accept the veteran as her husband again. Such a take feels much needed, especially in the cinema, where, borrowing the words of Edith Hall (2013), until now “Penelope has still waited”. The situation is more diverse in contemporary literature: it suffices to mention Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad: The Myth of Penelope and Odysseus (2005) as an example of a counter-narrative to the traditional Odyssey’s patriarchal tone. Similarly, by giving Penelope more depth – and in this case even more agency in determinig Odysseus’ final destiny – Ithaca: The Return offers a powerful commentary on gender roles and the way history has traditionally sidelined female voices.

Presented at the 2024 Rome Film Festival and the 2025 Toronto Film Festival, Ithaca: The Return hit theaters in the Netherlands on March 27, 2025.

References

– Atwood, Margaret. 2005. The Penelopiad: The Myth of Penelope and Odysseus. Toronto: Village Canada.

– Clayton, Barbara. 2004. A Penelopean Poetics: Reweaving the Feminine in Homer’s Odyssey. Oxford: Lexington Books.

– Cohen, Beth. 1995. The Distaff Side: Representing the Female in Homer’s Odyssey. New York: Oxford University Press.

– Doherty, Lillian Eileen. 1995. Siren Songs: Gender, Audiences, and Narrators in the Odyssey. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

– Felson, Nancy. 1994. Regarding Penelope: From Character to Poetics. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

– Hall, Edith. 2013. “Why Penelope is Still Waiting? The Missing Feminist Reappraisal of the Odyssey in Cinema, 1963-2007”, in Ancient Greek Women in Film, edited by Konstantinos P. Nikolouzos: 163–185. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

– Foley, Helene. P. 1978. “‘Reverse Similes’ and Sex Roles in the Odyssey”, Arethusa 11: 7–26.

– Holmberg, Ingrid E. 1995. “The Odyssey and Female Subjectivity”, Helios 22 (2): 103–22.

– Katz, Marylin A. 1991. Penelope’s Renown: Meaning and Indeterminacy in the Odyssey. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

– Lesser, Rachel. 2017. “The Pandareids and Pandora: Dening Penelope’s Subjectivity in the Odyssey”, Helios 44 (2): 101–132.

– Id. 2019. “Female Ethics and Epic Rivalry: Helen in the Iliad and Penelope in the Odyssey”, The American Journal of Philology, 140, 2: 189–226.

– Murnaghan, Sheila. 1986. “Penelope’s Agnoia: Knowledge, Power, and Gender in the Odyssey”, Helios 13: 103–15.

– Id. 1995. “The Plan of Athena”, in Cohen 1995: 61–80.

– Schein, Seth L. 1995. “Female Representations and Interpreting the Odyssey”, in Cohen 1995: 17–27.

– Winkler, John. 1990. “Penelope’s Cunning and Homer’s.” In The Constraints of Desire, 129–61. New York: Routledge.

– Wohl, Victoria. 1993. “Standing by the Stathmos: The Creation of Sexual Ideology in the Odyssey”, Arethusa 26: 19–50.

– Zeitlin, Froma. 1995. “Figuring Fidelity in Homer’s Odyssey”, in Cohen 1995: 117–52.

Header illustration by Adolfo de CarolisImmagini, from: Odissea, trad. Ettore Romagnoli, Bologna: Zanichelli, 1927.

Documentary: Het Heet Thee

By Talin de Jeu, Miriam Stuefer and Holly van Zoggel

Het Heet Thee originated from a shared interest in tea, gender, and the intersections of the two. With this documentary, we aim to dissect how mythologies surrounding tea and femininity are created and kept alive. By shooting images of the tea habits of ourselves and the people surrounding us, by filming artworks and china, and by collecting additional photographic footage from local archives and movie scenes, we search for intersecting and contradicting aspects of the personal, political and historical.

The documentary roughly follows the making process of tea: starting with ingredients, how they are grown and harvested, moving to the making of tea and the china it is consumed from, followed by the social aspects of drinking tea, and lastly its dregs. The focus on our own hands, shot on handheld phone cameras, emphasises our closeness to the subject but also the situatedness of our narrative. These images are intertwined with different types of archival material. This way, we wanted to underline the vast history and the physical and cultural contexts that all boil down into a single cup of tea. The images in the first chapter show people – predominantly women – working on tea plantations. Even though tea is strongly connected to femininity, the power still lies with men, as they are the ones judging the tea’s quality. We visualised this dichotomy between femininity and masculinity in our tea-culture with the two humorously named teas Decollethee and Theetosteron.

Although we do question the myths through our documentary, the style and nature of the film is subtler than if we had used a voiceover to explain our ideas. We chose this approach because we did not want to teach the viewer how gender(roles) and tea are intertwined. Instead, the documentary is a search for the parallels that constitute the myth, formalized in a way similar to the way myths circulate in our society: with subtlety but ever-present in its details.

The documentary Het Heet Thee was created in the BA course Moving Documentaries.

Documentary: Banden met Barrels

By Fenne van Beek, Jildou de Jong, Niko Oussoren, and Puck Gregoor

We, Fenne van Beek, Jildou de Jong, Niko Oussoren, and Puck Gregoor, are excited to present to you our short documentary, Banden met Barrels. It is a documentary created for the second-year course ‘Moving Documentaries’ as part of our bachelor’s program in Art and Cultural Studies at Radboud University. As four Dutch students, we wanted to shed light on bicycles, particularly student bicycles. Because where would the average student actually be without their bike? It may seem like a simple, ordinary object, and it is, but the bicycle is also a significant cultural phenomenon whose importance we often overlook. Bicycles are essential in Dutch student life for their practicality and reliability, despite their worn-out appearance. As will become evident in this documentary, the student bicycle can serve as a starting point for many conversations and two-wheeled journeys. We hope Banden met Barrels sparks nostalgia and prompts audiences to pause and appreciate the humble bicycle as more than just a mode of transportation, but as a symbol of freedom, community, and adventure.

The documentary Banden met Barrels was created in the BA course Moving Documentaries.

Documentary: Knuffels

By Rosa Floris, Lotte Lammers, Marta Ora, Laury van de Ven and Tim Wiesner

In Dutch, the word ‘knuffels’ holds a charming dual meaning, referring to both plush toys and hugs, and thus embodying a sense of comfort and care in a single term. Etymologically rooted in ‘knuffen’, meaning to bump or shove, the term ‘knuffels’ connotes a form of affection that entails both a gentle embrace and a playful nudge, driving home the idea of a push-and-pull, perpetually dynamic bond. This bond is at the center of our documentary, Knuffels, and explored through various interviews with Arts and Culture students of Radboud University. Knuffels pertains to the ambiguity of affection towards plush toys, and attempts to formulate an answer to the question: how do individuals attribute meaning to plushies within the context of ownership, and what psychological, emotional, and symbolic significance do these objects hold for their owners?

Knuffels aims to show truths; the audience is shown small aspects of the documentary’s construction, but not enough to betray the true extent of our involvement or to problematize the notion of truth. Instead, these few elements of construction work to disarm suspicion in the viewer and therefore aid in framing the contents of the documentary as truthful. The presentation of several voices, which at times contradict each other, serves this purpose. Subsequently, we have chosen to make fabric the common denominator in all shots and scenes, which vitalizes a soft aesthetic that fits, frames and harmonizes these oftentimes nostalgic sentiments expressed in the interviews.

As for the documentary in its entirety, the viewer could consider the footage a tapestry that we have carefully woven in collaboration with the interviewees, and from which we later cut and sewed together different pieces to make our final product – the visuals do not fabricate, the fabrics merely visualise. As a result, Knuffels quite literally embraces a storytelling predicated on multiplicity, be it in terms of lived experiences, perspectives, or the very essence of affection itself.

The documentary Knuffels was created in the BA course Moving Documentaries.

Documentary: Borrel

We are the makers of the short documentary ‘Borrel’ – Emily Hölz and Riikka Toropainen, Bachelor students at Radboud University from Germany and Finland. In 2021, we both came to the Netherlands for our studies and experienced many cultural differences when trying to settle in. Thus, when we had the chance to make our own documentary, in the second-year course ‘Moving Documentaries,’ we wanted to approach a topic that was familiar both to us and many like us. Thereby, our aim was to feel more at home, and integrated into the Dutch culture and lifestyle, whereby we hope to evoke this also in other internationals, who might feel lost in a city far away from home. Lastly, we hope that this documentary is interesting to Dutch people too, who might be curious about how internationals interact with and reinterpret their personal Culture and Pride.

The Garden

door Natascha Veldhorst

Een
van de meest intrigerende video’s die ik het afgelopen jaar heb gezien
is de korte film The Garden
(Zahrada, 1968,
ca. 16 min.) van de Tjechische regisseur Jan Švankmajer. Ik vertel er met opzet
niets over. Je moet er gewoon naar kijken en er het liefst van tevoren niets
over horen of lezen.

Bekijk de film hier: https://www.fandor.com/films/the_garden

De kunstenaar als hart van de economie?

Door Martijn Stevens

Het concept van de creatieve industrie lijkt paradoxaal. In de Nederlandse taal verwijst ‘industrie’ tenslotte naar de grootschalige en marktgerichte productie van materiële goederen. Creativiteit is daarentegen een persoonskenmerk van individuen. Ze wordt in verband gebracht met intrinsieke motivatie en de innerlijke drang om te creëren, die allebei nadrukkelijk losstaan van economisch gewin of maatschappelijk aanzien.

Sinds de negentiende eeuw wordt creativiteit daarom ook in verband gebracht met vrijheid, zelfbeschikking en authenticiteit. Deze waarden kwamen echter onder druk te staan door de opkomst van het zogeheten ‘fordisme’ in het begin van de twintigste eeuw, dat is genoemd naar de ideeën van autoproducent Henry Ford. De introductie van de assemblagelijn in fabrieken zorgde destijds voor schaalvergroting en efficiëntie bij de productie van auto’s, maar het artistieke proces werd evenzeer gestandaardiseerd. De productie van films in Hollywood werd bijvoorbeeld ‘lopendebandwerk’ en ook de mode-industrie is volledig gebaseerd op massificatie en commercialisering.

In het eerste decennium van de eenentwintigste eeuw heeft een snelle opeenvolging van ecologische en financiële crises evenwel gezorgd voor onrust en onzekerheid in verschillende delen van de wereld. Bedrijven en maatschappelijke organisaties worden hierdoor geconfronteerd met wicked problems, die notoir complex, tegenstrijdig en onvoorspelbaar zijn. Creativiteit en innovatie worden daarom belangrijker geacht dan standaardisering, schaalvergroting en massaconsumptie. Innovatie behelst kortweg de concrete toepassing van nieuwe ideeën met de bedoeling om steeds vernieuwende producten, diensten of processen te ontwikkelen.

Creativiteit wordt doorgaans beschouwd als de bron van deze ideeën en geldt daarom als een drijvende kracht achter innovatie. Hoewel beide concepten op uiteenlopende manieren zijn gedefinieerd en de relatie ertussen allerminst eenduidig is, wordt tegenwoordig alom verondersteld dat creativiteit en innovatie ontegenzeglijk bijdragen tot economische welvaart en maatschappelijk welzijn. Dikwijls wordt zelfs gesuggereerd dat de industriële economie van weleer inmiddels is overgegaan in een creatieve economie. Hiermee wordt niet gedoeld op de voortschrijdende commercialisering van de kunsten of de groeiende belangstelling voor de macro-economische effecten van de culturele sector. De tucht van de markt is daarbij een leidend principe en overheidsingrijpen wordt alleen toegestaan in het geval van marktfalen.

Het fenomeen van de creatieve economie is echter niet zozeer een uitwas van de economisering van kunst en cultuur, als wel van de toenemende ‘culturalisering’ van de economie. De toverwoorden in hedendaagse uitingen van management speak – creativiteit, passie, authenticiteit – zijn tekenend voor deze ontwikkeling. Dergelijke kwalificaties waren oorspronkelijk immers voorbehouden aan het werk van kunstenaars, maar ze lijken inmiddels gangbare eisen bij de vervulling van allerhande functies in het economische verkeer. Hieruit blijkt dat het concept van de creatieve industrie misschien toch niet tegenstrijdig is met zichzelf. In plaats daarvan is het romantische beeld van de kunstenaar die weerstand biedt aan de onderdrukking door sociale, politieke en technische structuren definitief verworden tot een anachronisme of een echo uit het verleden. Als de profielschets van de kunstenaar namelijk perfect tegemoetkomt aan de functie-eisen van de hedendaags economie, betreft de échte innovatie in het domein van de creatieve industrie wellicht vooral kunstenaars zelf – juist wanneer zij zich bewegen van een marginale positie naar het hart van de economie. Welke functies zijn voor hen nog weggelegd in postfordistische tijden?

Beeld credits: Banksy, Capitalism for Sale, foto Bruce Krasting via https://www.flickr.com/photos/bruce_krasting/7003771293/ via creative commons