In the Hand of Dante Movie Review
What value does art have in a corrupt and violent world that treats it as a mere commodity? Writer-director Julian Schnabel’s film In the Hand of Dante explores this theme with two contrasting narratives, running parallelly. In one chapter, Oscar Isaac plays Italian poet Dante Alighieri, a man whom Pope Boniface VIII (Gerard Butler) casts out of Florence as he finds Dante a threat to his quest for ultimate power. Shot in colour, the period portion shows a Dante who is noble but whom society does not value enough. Dante has much spiritual and artistic nobility, but the world of politics in the fourteenth century treats him as a mere outsider.
Schnabel creates a contrast between Dante Alighieri and his modern-day counterpart, an author named Nick Tosches (Oscar Isaac), by shooting the portions in colour and black-and-white, respectively. The film goes away from cinematic conventions of shooting period portions in monochrome and the modern world in colour. This is a deliberate choice to convey the film’s dense themes of moral decay, politics and spirituality. The modern world that commodifies art values Nick’s deep knowledge in Dante’s literature only for the utility he brings to them. The mafia, for whom Nick works, values his brain and not his artistic soul. They use his expertise to execute their plan to steal a centuries-old manuscript of Dante Alighieri’s poem The Divine Comedy purely for the monetary benefits that comes with it. Nick works as per the mafia’s plan, but will he go through with it when he realises their rotten and violent ways of working? Or will he eventually have a spiritual awakening? This forms the crux of In the Hand of Dante’s story.
Director: Julian Schnabel
Cast: Oscar Isaac, Gal Gadot, Gerard Butler, John Malkovich, Louis Cancelmi, Martin Scorsese
Streamer: Netflix
The film has an undeniably compelling premise, but it does not quite work because of its archaic language that is difficult to follow and its meandering storytelling style. Writer-director Schnabel populates it with so many story layers and characters that unnecessarily elongate the runtime and do not add any more nuance to what is already there in the base material. In an early stretch set in the modern day, Gerard Butler plays a gangster who kills everyone that stands in his way to achieve his goals. He executes his victims with a sense of callousness signifying that killing is second nature to him. However, Schnabel devotes too much screen time to Butler’s modern-day character just to underscore his ruthless nature, where one or two scenes would suffice. There is also Jason Momoa in the sketchy part of a man in a hat with an ulterior motive. The use of an Al Pacino cameo is the biggest mystery of the film.
On the other hand, the conversation between Dante and his spiritual mentor Isaiah (Martin Scorsese with a big beard that beats even Gandalf) labours on, further stretching the already elongated runtime. It is so hard to stay invested in his search for the divine mainly because of the esoteric language and the self-indulgence by the maker.
It is only the broader story and the visuals that allow us to understand that Dante has no option but to turn inward and build his own universe (The Divine Comedy) as society has no place for him. He retains his nobility right through. Fascinatingly, the film positions Dante and Nick, separated by 700 years, as distorted mirror images of each other. A reincarnation angle involving the two versions of Dante and another character tries desperately to resonate but to no avail.
Even as Nick makes certain choices in the story and respects his mentor’s literature, In the Hand of Dante makes it clear that he still exists in a capitalist world in which he wants his reward. Matching Dante’s journey through the Inferno, Nick wades through a literal hell of modern violence to find a hidden place where he earns some grace and peace. Essentially, he is an anti-hero who best represents the rigours of living in his universe—a man who is smart enough to recognise the transcendence of Dante's literature, yet who is still a product of his world.
It is a pity that the film fails to make the most of its profound premise. The performances also play their part in making In the Hand of Dante a long and laborious film to sit through. Right from Oscar Isaac and Gerard Butler to John Malkovich, none of them appears convincing enough in their respective portrayals, despite their earnest efforts. Roman Vasyanov’s cinematography and Benjamin Clementine’s music do more to retain the viewer's interest than the cast. The cinematography and the music shine the most as Dante navigates the mythical Island of the Damned where he seeks the ultimate salvation from God, marrying it with an arresting sense of surrealism. Unfortunately, none of its technical prowess helps Dante reach its peak.