Tiresia (Bertrand Bonello, 2003)

Classical mythology has inspired artists ever since the Homeric Poems. From Dante, to Gustave Moreau, to T.S. Eliot, to postmodern filmmakers and authors, the amount of mythological inspired art is endless. The myth of Tiresias has especially inspired artists worldwide because of the gender transformation associated with the myth. Bertrand Bonello, a contemporary French filmmaker, is another artist who was deeply inspired by classical mythology to create his masterpiece Tiresia. The film, which is a bold retelling of the Tiresias myth in a modern setting, sets out to tackle many of the themes in the myth as well as present its own. Through the exploration of the ancient myth this ambiguous and difficult film can be pieced together.

The film begins with images of lava flowing for approximately two minutes until the name of the film appears. These images of the ferocious pool of lava pave the way for one of the most important themes of the film and myth: that nothing stays the same forever (Bitel). Even stone and rock can be turned into a flowing river by heat and pressure. The volcano itself also pursues the theme that anything can change at anytime or moment. It is clear that this scene is not pointless and that it sets the tone of the film and introduces one of its main themes.
According to Ovid, Tiresias was changed from a man to a woman for disrupting two mating snakes (Ovid 108-109). When the film introduces Tiresia she appears as a transsexual. This is an obvious allusion to the transformation and we can account for Tiresias being a transsexual, instead of a woman, since it is being told in a modern setting and someone who changes sex is at some point a transsexual.

After briefly introducing Tiresia, the film introduces Terranova who is the main character for the first half of the film. When first seen he is talking about his garden of roses and how superior the roses are when men alter them.

(Terranova admiring Greek sculptures.)

This helps the viewer understand how much Terranova cares about perfection and why he becomes so obsessed with Tiresia; its her unnatural beauty that is superior to any real beauty any woman can have. When Terranova and Tiresia first meet, Terranova brings Tiresia to his home and we see Tiresia looking at her reflection in the picture of a coiled snake, referencing once again to the Ovid tale.

Terranova’s obsession takes a serious turn when he abducts Tiresia and locks her up in a room while he watches through the keyhole. In a reversal of roles, Terranova’s voyeurism seems to allude to Callimachus’ poem where Tiresias is blinded for seeing Minerva (Athena for the Greeks) nude while she was bathing (Callimachus 93-104).

The reversal of roles is another way Bonello advances the theme that started the film: that nothing remains the same forever. Even the characters in his film exchange parts. In Oedipus the King Tiresias proclaims, “Alas! Alas! How terrible to be wise” (Sophocles 675). In the film, the concept of being wise is replaced by beauty and Tiresia is made to suffer by Terranova because of her beauty. He ties her up every night and keeps her locked in a room all day.

This is another important theme being developed in the myth and the film. While in the ancient world being wise made you suffer in the modern world it is beauty that makes people suffer.
Inventively playing with the myth, about halfway through the film Bonello shows us a dead beaver that was presumably killed by Terranova, who immediately after killing the beaver blinds Tiresia.

In the original myth Tiresias is changed into a woman after hitting a pair of coupling snakes with his staff. In this version it seems that the distress caused by Tiresia on Terranova leads him to kill the beaver and afterwards blind Tiresia. In the two written variations, the cause of Tiresias’s blindness is a woman, either Athena or Hera. (Harris and Platzner 650-651). The fact that Tiresias’s blindness is caused by a man and that it is neither the result of seeing someone nude or displeasing someone with an answer, shows how Bonello is playing with the myth and interpreting with his own modern voice.

After the blinding takes place, the film seems to follow the original myth more than in the first half. Tiresia is dumped and left for dead in the middle of the forest where a young female who lives next to a church finds her.

She takes Tiresia in and revives him back to health.

Once Tiresia is healed the audience can notice that all of his feminine traits were removed. It is possible that killing the beaver is the second time needed in order to turn Tiresia back to a man, while the first time was not even portrayed in the film. In order to understand this, the viewer might need to be familiar with European art cinema which a lot of times leaves out events in order to engage the audience more than a typical film. Bonello pursues this even further by the fact that Tiresia is now played by a man in the film while in the first half a woman played Tiresia.

Further alluding to the myth, Tiresia seems to have come back with prophetic powers. The first time this is revealed is when a man is telling Tiresia he should have listened to his prophecy, but now two people are dead because they ignored him. This references to almost every instance of Tiresias’s prophecies, from Euripides’s Bacchae, to Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex and Antigone, all of which include instances where Tiresias’s prophecy is ignored, which always ends in a tragic event.

(Tiresia giving a prophecy)

After this, more people begin to believe Tiresia’s prophecy and people start coming to him for his abilities, much like people went to the Oracle at Delphi to hear Tiresia’s prophecies. In one of the revelations, a man, who says he drove a long way to come and talk to him, asks him what he thinks.

Tiresia replies, “What I think isn’t important. I only translate.” Once again, this is a key concept in the Tiresias myth where Tiresias would simply tell riddles that the Gods told him, basically translating the God’s words to humans since mere mortals would not be able to understand the language of the Gods.

(People flocking the oracle)

As more people flock to Tiresia’s home, which has turned into the modern oracle, the Priest of the church by his home becomes more enraged as he thinks Tiresia is forcing people away from the church.

With this aspect of the film, Bonello is presenting a theme common among his other works: themes of institutionalized forces, e.g. the production company in The Pornographer, the military institute in De La Guerre and the church in this film. All serve to interfere in people’s lives. After a series of flashbacks and contradicting scenes, the film ends with a voiceover of the priest coming to some sort of conclusion saying that “we’re just a part of things that go on.” With the flashback and scenes just witnessed, this makes sense and seems to put closure on the film meaning that nothing is fully complete, most aspects of life are simple fragments and nothing remains the same.
Bonello's film is not to be missed.

Extra stills:

Works Cited:

Bitel, Anton. "Tiresia Review." Eye for Film. Web. 10 Oct. 2009. .

Callimachus. The Fifth Hymn: The Bath of Pallas. Cambridge [Cambridgeshire]: Cambridge UP, 1985. Print.
Harris, Stephen, and Gloria Platzner. "The Tragic House of Laius: Tiresias." Classical Mythology: Images and Insights. 5th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2008. 650-51. Print.
Ovid. Metamorphoses (Penguin Classics). New York: Penguin Classics, 2004. Print.
Sophocles. Oedipus Rex. Classical Mythology: Images and Insights. 5th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2008. 666-714. Print.