Odissea
Odissea
| 24 March 1968 (USA)
Odissea Trailers

Odysseus' journey told in Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. After fighting in the Trojan War, Odysseus spends years trying to return home to Itaka.

Reviews
Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good
Spoonatects Am i the only one who thinks........Average?
SteinMo What a freaking movie. So many twists and turns. Absolutely intense from start to finish.
Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.
asterisk The Odyssey as a book is a masterpiece of world literature by itself. Sadly enough, every movie version of Homers epic, hardly make any impression on me, and from comments below I can see I'm not the only one.But seeing this version was entirely different experience. I don't know why, but no movie ever awake in me such sense for longing, nostalgic, a feel for time that past by, like this series. I was delighted to find Italian subs for deaf persons & translate it to my native Serbian.Latter, on my vacation on Kefalonia & Ithaca, I'v got desire to translate to English, and partly as a homage to Bekim Fehmiu who commit a suicide at that time in Belgrade. With only few minor diversions from Homer, F. Rossi made this series as best adaptation of any classical work, as by my opinion.Omittion of Scylla & Charibdes was probably due to budget constraints. Also, displacing the episode with Lestrygonians into openings of Odysseus story (& reducing Odysseus fleet to one ship), he cunningly enable himself easier & cheaper (but equally effective) performance.In places where he change Homer (ex.suitors decide to string bow day after failed competition), he does so artistically, that I have impression that even Homer would congratulate him. With obviously only two constructed ships (one large & one small-that of Telemachus), he accurately depicted on of most famous sea voyages in history.Unique depiction of ships, cities, Trojan horse or Odysseus bow just adds to astonishment. Dialogues are special thing in this series:natural, proverbial, romantic & never boring.Actors plays in such manner, that I cant remember anyone who deserves any critic. This series also affect me to look on another works of Franco Rossi. Thus I watch Eneid (1971), which is mostly deficient comparing to his previous work (ie Odissea), but have nice description of destruction of Troy & still its only full film version of Vergil epic.My recommendations.
bebop63-1 Of all the versions of the Odyssey (or of any Greek mythological story for that matter), this in my opinion is the best of them all. Almost true to the original storyline - with some minor deviations and omissions, e.g. the absence of Scylla & Charybdis and the fact that Odysseus's fleet of ships is reduced to just one instead of the original 12- the realistic acting and authentic scenery and costumes all contribute to make this a truly memorable masterpiece, not just another sword-and-sandal Hollywood production B-flick. Notwithstanding the fact that the dialogue and subtitles are completely in Italian, if one is familiar with the storyline, he can still make heads and tails of what is going on and what the actors are saying (provided you have a good handy text of the Odyssey at hand). At least I did, and so much so that it has inspired me to study the Italian language to better appreciate the movie even more.
j-tingley I've been trying to find out about this series for ages! Thank you, IMDb! I saw this as a child and have never quite been able to get it out of my mind. As a 6-year old, of course, I was particularly struck by the episode of the cyclops, which was absolutely chilling (I talked about it so much that my older brother made me a cyclops out of a plastic cave man figurine, which I still have) What I also remember, though, was the atmosphere, which was unusual right from the beginning - mysterious, austere, and extremely authentic. When I read the original many years later I experienced that same sensation. It's a very hard thing to capture - and probably impossible in Hollywood. Every 'Odyssey' I've seen since has been an enormous let-down. The characters in this series seemed genuine, real people - ancient Greek people - and not some Hollywood stars in costumes. This is a real masterpiece! But - Why is it not better known? And why isn't it available on VHS or DVD? I would just love to have the chance to see this again!
jallen-4 Although I have not seen this mini-series in over twenty years I can still remember how the balance between character,plot and tale of marvelous adventures succeeded. The use of special effects was restrained making a more poetic rather than literal telling of the story. The two versions I've seen were dubbed (English and French)but the actors appear to speak their own language not just Italian so there is a synchronization problem. It does not spoil the story telling. Among the cast Irene Pappas as Penelope is the most recognizable to North Americans. Recommended to all followers of Odysseus' ever returning.