Between Heaven and Hell: Film Review of In the Hand of Dante
★★☆☆
Illustration by Michael DiMilo
By Geoff Carter
It’s been said that history repeats itself and that life imitates art. Sometimes taken in conjunction, these points can be foundational to the construction of unique cinematic narratives. Films like The French Lieutenant’s Woman and Possession use dual-timeline, historical narratives to underline the contrasts and the—mostly—unchanging universal similarities between human nature through time.
Possession is a film about two literary scholars whose investigation of a clandestine affair between doomed Victorian poets mirrors their own relationship. The French Lieutenant’s Woman compares the affair between two actors in a film crew to the characters they are playing in a historical drama they are filming. History repeats and life becomes art.
Julian Schnabel’s film In the Hand of Dante is yet another ambitious foray into this type of parallel drama. Based on the novel by Nick Tosches, the film follows the fictionalized version of himself—as played by Oscar Isaac, as he finds himself embroiled in a violent scheme to steal the original manuscript of Dante’s Comedy. In the book, Tosches is a renowned Dante scholar who is hired by a mob boss Joe Black (John Malkovich) to investigate an alleged original manuscript of Dante’s Comedy and acquire it for him. Accompanied by Louie (Gerard Butler), Black’s ruthless enforcer, Nick travels to Italy where they do find a manuscript that to all appearances, seems to be genuine. After Louie kills all witnesses, the two then steal it.
After getting the manuscript, they return to Joe Black, who is angry when Nick informs him that the manuscript must be validated through carbon dating, electron microscopy, and other means. Part of this process entails another trip to Italy where Nick meets Giulietta (Gal Gadot). The two start a torrid affair. Appalled by the growing number of bodies being left behind, Nick decides to take matters into his own hands.
The narrative flips back and forth between Nick’s modern-day crime narrative to the life of Dante (Oscar Isaac) himself in fourteenth-century Italy. This side of the narrative is partly historical biography and partly an explication of Dante’s philosophical meanderings and his search for religious truth. It also describes his platonic love for the beautiful Beatrice, to whom he never even speaks. He instead marries Gemma (Gal Gadot), a noblewoman to whom he pays little attention.
Placing Dante and Nick on parallel narrative planes—most obviously by having portrayed by the same actor—equates Dante’s spiritual struggles as an artist with Nick’s (also an artist) more mundane worldly struggles to make a fortune.
Dante is tortured by his quest for spirituality. He seeks to find God and is told to visit Isaiah, the man with no name (Martin Scorsese) whose words of wisdom seem to enlighten Dante but in effect seem to be little more than new age mumbo-jumbo. If there is historical significance to these events and Isaiah’s words, their import is not communicated clearly—if at all—to the viewer. In fact, Dante’s story seems so convoluted and opaque, I felt as if I needed Cliff Notes to follow along.
Nick’s story, on the other hand, is a gripping crime thriller. It opens with Nick as a child going to visit his uncle (Al Pacino) to tell him he murdered someone. The uncle’s deft tapdancing around the issues of sin, confession, guilt, repentance, and responsibility lay te groundwork for Nick’s adult sense of morality.
The film then switches to Louie the enforcer going to take care of business at a local bar whose owner owes him money. Not since Richard Widmark’s Tommy Udo pushed an old lady in a wheelchair down the stairs in Kiss of Deathhave we seen a more a more pathologically sadistic killer. His casual sadistic cruelty toward the bartender is all the more harrowing because it seems so routine. Louie almost seems like a regular guy, but his viciousness crops up during casual banter like a rattlesnake ready to strike, but Gerard Butler manages to somehow portray Louie the killer with traces of humanity and humor.. When he and Nick are flying home from Italy, his stories about people he’s whacked are almost funny.
Joe Black, the gangster mastermind behind the theft of The Comedy, is a smooth-talking smarmy athlete who seems amused by the chaos he is causing. John Malkovich is at his wily best here as he explains the discovery of The Comedy to an incredulous Nick. The set-up of the theft and its subsequent bloody aftermath is well-plotted and coherent—to a point.
There is much to like about In the Hand of Dante. The casting and acting are excellent, and it’s a special treat to suddenly recognize Martine Scorsese in a key role. Butler and Malkovich are not your stereotypical gangsters. Malkovich lends a certain elan to his role as a man who seems to perversely enjoy the evil he cultivates. Louie has kind of a workingman’s weariness he brings to his various grisly errands.
Gal Gadot doesn’t have much to do as Gemma but brings an invigorating vitality to Giulietta. Oscar Isaac is, as always, an intense presence on the screen. Nick is arrogant, abrasive, shrewd, and driven by his own demanding vision to create an art that is wholly his own. In the opening scene, he sits with his pal Lefty talking non-stop about his writing and the worthless editors and agents who would shackle his art.
As Dante, Isaac gives a more measured performance. He is thoughtful, loving, but yet—like Nick, motivated by his art for which he seeks spiritual clarity—a clarity he attains after a painful self-immolation. It is, at any rate, a brilliant performance.
In the Hand of Dante is beautifully photographed. The present-day narrative is shot in a grainy black and white, emphasizing the harsh reality of the avaricious society Nick ends up serving. The fourteenth-century sequences are shot in beautifully muted colors, perhaps reflecting a social order predicated on art, spirituality, and self-realization more than worldly desires.
As the film winds down and the narratives converge, instead of reaching clarity, the intent of the filmmakers seems to become more and more opaque. The question of whether Schnabel is addressing love eternal, the presence of Hell on Earth (nine circles), or the painful sacrifices of the artist is unclear. While ambitious in its reach, this film becomes a hopeless mishmash of a spiritual quest, an artistic achievement, a love story, and a caper film. Some scenes, like one where Nick is lying on a beach somewhere with a bandaged knee, pops up out of nowhere. The film does not explain where he is or why he is there or why the scene is necessary.
There is a lot in this film worth seeing, but watching it is ultimately a frustrating experience. Parts of Dante’s life, like the reasons for his exile from Florence, is barely scrutable, and the link between Dante and Isaac, while intuitively understandable, is hard to fathom logically. Although some of the dialogue, particularly the Tarantino-like banter in Joe Black’s office is absorbing and funny, the plot eventually becomes a mess.
However, In the Hand of Dante, it is a beautifully photographed and extremely well-acted film. It is worth a watch—especially for Dante fans.
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