Christopher Nolan's film "The Odyssey" opens in cinemas across India and the world on July 17, putting Matt Damon in the role of a Greek king Odysseus who has been famous for roughly 2,700 years. But long before Damon put on the costume, Homer's original poem told a much older story: a war hero who wins on the battlefield, then spends a decade nearly losing his life, his crew, and his wife, kingdom just trying to get home.
That gap, between winning the war and surviving the peace, is the real engine of the story, and it's why "The Odyssey" has outlasted almost every other tale from the ancient world.
