Arabic version: الجدل حول «الأوديسة» يركّز على الزينيا

According to The Guardian, Peter Swallow argues that criticism of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey has focused on perceived “wokeness”, while overlooking the film’s larger challenge to nationalist politics: its emphasis on xenia, an ancient custom governing the treatment of strangers.

Swallow, Labour MP for Bracknell and chair of the all-party parliamentary group on classics, writes that some rightwing commentators objected to Nolan casting Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy. He also notes complaints about historical accuracy, including the use of Corinthian helmets in a bronze age setting. Helen, he writes, is a mythical daughter of Zeus whose story has appeared in different versions.

The author says the more significant issue is Nolan’s interpretation of xenia, translated in the film as “Zeus’s law”. In Homer’s Odyssey, Swallow writes, the custom shapes how societies and cultures interact. Those who break it, including the Cyclops, are punished, while figures who uphold it, such as Telemachus, are rewarded.

Swallow views the film’s treatment of xenia as an allegory for a fraying rules-based international system. He cites state sovereignty being undermined by Russia, international maritime law being threatened by China, and Donald Trump’s disdain for multilateral cooperation on trade, defence and the climate crisis. In the film, Odysseus and Penelope see their bronze age Greek civilisation collapsing as sea raiders wage war and break Zeus’s law, an event linked to the historical Mycenaean collapse.

The article concludes that Nolan’s reimagining presents international diplomacy and multilateralism as necessary to civilisation. Swallow writes that ancient stories can be retold for new times and arguments, and that no individual gets to own the ancient world.