Ulysses: A Dark Odyssey (2018) (NTSC)

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General		Extras
Category	Action	None
Rating
Year Of Production	2018
Running Time	115:23
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Programme
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Federico Alotto
Studio Distributor	Umbrella Entertainment	Starring	Andrea Zirio Danny Glover Udo Kier Anamaria Marinca Drew Kenney Gianni Capaldi Jessica Polsky Giovanni Mancaruso Sigal Diamant Francesca Ravera Charlotte Kirk
Case	Amaray-Opaque
RPI	?	Music	Alan Brunetta Yellows

Video (NTSC)		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	480i (NTSC)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	None	Smoking	Yes, and drug use
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

     The near future: the United States of Europe are in chaos, fighting a war in the Middle East and with its biggest city, Taurus City, controlled by crime boss Michael Ocean (Danny Glover) through his chief enforcer Tony (Gianni Capaldi). Johnny, also known as Uly (Andrea Zirio), returns home to Taurus City from the Middle East after seven years with no memory of where he has been and only limited memory of who he is. His old apartment now has other tenants and his wife Penelope (Anamaria Marinca) is missing. After recruiting his old comrade Niko (Drew Kenney), Johnny embarks on a search for Penelope through the underworld of Taurus City, encountering drug dealer Aeo (Giovanni Mancaruso), Cici (Sigal Diamant), Scilla (Francesca Ravera), Hermes (Mario Acampa), the Seer (Skin), Kaly (Charlotte Kirk) and Alcyde (horror icon Udo Kier), all the time hunted by Tony and police detectives Marino (Christopher Jones) and Delfin (Jessica Polsky). As Johnny starts to recover his memory it seems that he has history with Michael Ocean, not the least being that his wife Penelope is Ocean’s daughter. A confrontation is coming.

     Ulysses: A Dark Odyssey is an Italian production (in English) directed and co-written by Federico Alotto, the other co-writer being the leading man Andrea Zirio. For filmmakers with only one feature behind them, this is an audacious and ambitious film based on Homer’s The Odyssey that veers between being very good and annoying in almost equal measure. Almost every filmmaking trick and technique is used during the filming (with the exception of split screens); abrupt camera pans and zooms, different film speeds slowing and speeding up the action, queasy moving cameras, frenetic editing, single frames of extreme colours and intense bursts of sound. There are also a number of rave party scenes with loud thumping electronic music and kinetic lighting effects which tend to wear a bit thin. However, perhaps there is a good treason for all the trickery for it diverts attention from the wooden acting and the stilted, often pretentious, dialogue.

     And yet in places Ulysses: A Dark Odyssey is intriguing. It utilises a flashback structure to gradually reveal who the characters are and the interrelationships between them. These flashbacks are not overdone, however, so the narrative structure remains fairly straightforward until a major twist towards the end; it is clear that Johnny / Ulysses is badly scarred physically and psychologically by his experiences in the war and the twist questions just how much this has affected what we are seeing through his eyes, and his quest for his wife. And then in the climax all the camera tricks and frenetic editing are pared away leaving two individuals, in almost silence, in front of a solid black background, in a scene that is poignant and moving. One somehow wishes that more of the film could have been as compelling as these sequences, or the final scene of the film.

     One gets the impression that the makers of Ulysses: A Dark Odyssey took on more than they could accomplish. The camera tricks are amateurish, and the subplot with the police only complicates things and could have been omitted without hurting the film, except perhaps the running time. However, the film is exuberant and capable of holding one’s attention and the cross-referencing of characters in The Odyssey into a modern context is a lot of fun. Full marks for effort!

Video

     Ulysses: A Dark Odyssey is in the 2.35:1 aspect ratio, NTSC and 16x9 enhanced.

     In a film with flamboyant camera moves and zooms, quick editing, dark buildings, rave parties with flashing lights and smoke haze and bright, washed out colour in the flashbacks to the war, it is hard to tell how solid the detail is or if there are artefacts or marks. These things are deliberate, I know. There are also bright vibrant colours flashing up in single frames to show the disorientation of the characters. The couple of daytime scenes, however, show strong detail and nice colours and the night flyovers of the city have solid blacks and good shadow detail. Skin tones are glossy but generally fine.

     The layer change at 57:38 resulted in a pause mid-scene.

     No subtitles are provided. However small white subtitles come on for all of Aeo’s (Giovanni Mancaruso) English dialogue, presumably because someone decided it was hard to understand. It was, but I don’t think he was the hardest to understand by any means, so it was an interesting choice.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

     Audio is English Dolby Digital 5.1 at 384 Kbps.

     This is a loud and aggressive audio track, although channel separation is not always clear. The rears and surrounds were full of explosions, bursts of sound, announcements off screen and the throbbing electronic music of the rave parties, crowd yells and voices. Even when not at the parties there was frequently the throb of machinery, the muted beat of the music, distant thunder or just an atonal rumble in the audio. Dialogue was not always clear when subs would have helped. The subwoofer was used aggressively for the boom of the music, blasts of sound, atonal hums, the explosions and gunshots.

     The score was by Alan Brunetta while the loud electronic music is by Yellows.

    Lip synchronisation seemed fine.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

     Nothing. The feature commences after the DVD loads.

     This Region All, NTSC release of Ulysses: A Dark Odyssey, seems to be the only one around except for a Region 2 Italian release (in English but with Italian subtitles).

     While Ulysses: A Dark Odyssey can be repetitive and the filmmakers yell “look at how clever I am” frequently due to the camera trickery, the story of the betrayed returning war hero without his memory is an interesting variation of the Ulysses story which has its moments of poignancy and sadness. If you can put up with the flashiness there is a good story to tell here.

     The video as the filmmakers intended, the audio is loud and aggressive. No extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall