When I was a kid, I had some storybooks. From Ancient Asia to Ancient Greece, they told me many names that seemed unrelated. There was a one-eyed giant, singing mermaids, and soldiers hidden inside a huge wooden horse.
Then I started to hear the name Odyssey again and again. I heard it in an antitrust seminar, in a love song, and even in Chinese media. People describe our twenties as an “Odyssey,” a time when we leave home and look for a place to land.
So what is Odyssey? I hadn’t read the original story before watching the film. I didn’t even expect it to be a good movie. When I rate a film, every movie starts at zero. But if a movie needs me to commit to almost three hours right from the start, it starts at minus one.
That is why I used to think Titanic was my favorite movie. Whenever I said that, I could always see the shocked and confused expressions on people’s faces. “Because it is a complete and delicate story. It’s long, but it never feels like a waste of time.”
Telling a story is building a machine called a narrative. The structure has to be solid. In terms of time, the beginning, the end, and everything in between should be clear. In terms of space, the audience has the right to know where the story takes place, and they should know whenever the setting changes.
Sounds easy. But whether the machine runs smoothly depends on other techniques. The Odyssey achieves this by weaving together the present and memories. Even without English subtitles, I could follow the entire story, although I didn’t yet realize these seemingly separate stories were all part of one long journey.
Besides that, the film is full of ingenious foreshadowing. It creates just enough curiosity to keep the audience watching, reappears throughout the story, either directly or indirectly, and is resolved at exactly the right moment, in ways that are clear, moving, or shocking.
Odysseus’s dog is foreshadowed through repeated shots of it throughout the film, then resolved with a flashback to its puppy days with Odysseus. Athena, on the other hand, returns again and again through the small statue Odysseus carries and through recurring images of her face whenever Odysseus thinks about the past. Only at the end do the images come together. The woman crying out before her execution bears Athena’s face. The blade falls. In the firelight of the burning temple, the statue’s head crashes to the ground.
The final effect of a narrative comes from the combination of many different elements. Ingenious storytelling alone does not necessarily make a great work. Merrily We Roll Along is one example. At the beginning, there is already plenty to discover through both its characters and its plot. A man has a wife and a mistress. An old friend, who once had feelings for him, looks down on his luxurious life and refuses to speak to his new “friends.” A name is mentioned, but no one knows who he is or what happened between these old friends. Meanwhile, some smaller storylines already seem complete, like the wife’s revenge on the mistress.
Merrily We Roll Along also has ingenious storytelling. It tells its story through a series of flashbacks. Each flashback marks an important stage of the characters’ lives. As the story moves backward, it becomes clearer, and the audience gradually understands why these close friends ended up like this. Moments of lighthearted joy alternate with major emotional turning points. The same characters return in every stage of their lives, but in different relationships with one another.
Then came the final scene, and I couldn’t stop crying. It takes us back to the first night they encouraged one another to chase their dreams. The person one of the protagonists has loved all along, whose name has been mentioned again and again throughout the story, finally appears on screen, drawing gasps from the audience.
On the rooftop of an apartment building in New York City, their eyes shine with hope and anticipation. Some of their dreams will come true, but so much of what lies ahead is still beyond their imagination.
My last glimpse of New York was Manhattan at night, two years ago. Some dreams had already come true. Countless moments still lay beyond anything I could imagine.
However, Merrily We Roll Along is not a great work for me. Although it appears to tell a modern story, what it has to say feels surprisingly limited. Pick up almost any issue of The New Yorker, and you’ll find similar stories in its profiles. The songs are technically impressive, but rarely beautiful. Some scenes also feel unnecessarily long. Halfway through the show, my friend beside me kept checking the time.
By contrast, The Odyssey never made me cry, but it left me in awe. Its cinematography brings the giants, witches, and the blue sea vividly to life. Beyond its masterful craftsmanship, Nolan adds a new layer of meaning to this story that has been told for centuries.
That is how classics continue to live. They speak to questions that people in every age can still understand. Then each generation, through its own narrative craftsmanship, offers a new answer while leaving new questions for its audience and for those who come after. Questions about war, peace, and life, questions that will never have final answers.
On my usual bike ride home along the canal, where boats lay like huge shadows, I passed the church spire glowing against the dark blue sky. My eyes went past the church spire to the horizon. Layer after layer of clouds covered the moonlight. I stopped my bike. Between the dark crowns of the trees was a blurred glow. Then another appeared, small and silver. It was a dog. On the other end of the long leash was a man, white-haired.
When I got home, I was still smiling. I gave up trying to sleep and lay awake in the middle of the night. Odysseus lay on a makeshift raft. No soldiers, no fleet, no swords, no one else, dead or alive. When he gave himself to the sea, what was he thinking?
This is my favorite scene.
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