Rowan Davies

At the David Keighley Theater, I watched Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” (shot entirely with IMAX® film cameras) presented in 70mm IMAX® film. Rather than simply watching the screen, I felt as though I was there the entire time. It was more than watching it, I witnessed it. The impact was close to what I felt when I was in elementary school student and when I first experienced the “Cinerama” at the “Osaka OS Theater.” Back then, I was used to watching everything on a CRT television, and the sense of immersion was unlike anything I had ever experienced. It brought back those memories. In hindsight, not having Japanese subtitles may have made the experience even better. I already knew the story well, having grown up watching the 1954 Kirk Douglas version and several black-and-white adaptations, but this was an entirely different experience. For me, it was an Odyssey unlike anything I had ever experienced. Despite the enormous 1.43:1 screen, Christopher Nolan and Hoyte van Hoytema’s cinematography brings us remarkably close to the actors’ faces. Through an exceptionally shallow depth of field and elegant pull-focus shots that shifts our attention to the finest details, they relentlessly follow the characters’ anguish and fate. The cast delivers performances powerful enough to withstand every bit of that extraordinary resolution. Nolan’s signature storytelling, with its meticulously interwoven timelines, is very much present here as well. Together, these elements elevate one of the world’s best-known classical epics into an intimate, deep human drama. It was magnificent. When it opens in Japan this September, it will be shown in digital IMAX®, but I have no doubt I’ll be making the “journey back” several more times.