It is difficult, at least after a single viewing, to wrap your arms around “In the Hand of Dante.”
An ambitious adaptation of the 2002 novel of the same name by the late Nick Tosches, the latest film from director Julian Schnabel debuted last year at the Venice International Film Festival and is landing on Netflix this week after a brief limited theatrical run.
Schnabel — who mesmerized audiences in 2007 with “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,” based on the memoir by Jean-Dominique Bauby — takes a huge swing in the adaptation process this time around, working with co-writer Louise Kugelberg and getting mixed results.
A fictionalized version of Tosches himself is the protagonist of his novel, the author being recruited by mobsters into a scheme to steal the original text of Italian poet Dante Alighieri’s 14th-century masterpiece, “Divine Comedy,” with the intention of fetching a hefty price for the priceless, weathered pages.
That’s also the case in the film, with Oscar Isaac portraying the frustrated writer — and “Divine Comedy” expert — at a low point following the unexpected death of his daughter. However, in Schnabel’s telling of “Dante,” Isaac also embodies the poet as he struggles to complete his great work, with other cast members including Gal Gadot and Gerard Butler also playing parallel figures in the two timelines.
That Butler portrays both a cold-blooded hitman and Pope Boniface VIII — reviled by Dante, who saw him as an embodiment of corruption — is a particularly potent choice.
There is no mistaking these interwoven timelines, as Schnabel and cinematographer Roman Vasyanov (“Fury,” “Suicide Squad”) present the modern-day timeline, set around the turn of the century, in widescreen and striking black-and-white and the events set in 14th-century Italy in the square-ish 4:3 aspect ratio and in saturated color.
Schnabel first presents us with text providing background on both Dante, whose work “not only shaped the Italian language but also redefined boundaries of human imagination,” and Newark, New Jersey-born Tosches, “a literary iconoclast whose voice captured the dark poetry of the contemporary world.”
After a brief introduction to Dante, who has traveled to an imposingly tall rock of an island to work, we meet Nick railing about the difficulties of writing in the modern world and how his work cannot be subject only to editors who “conspire” with the writer to complete the vision as he dines in a New York City restaurant with a pal, Lefty (Louis Cancelmi), who has ties to the criminal underworld.
The more compelling introduction, however, is that of Lefty’s associate Louie (Butler), who visits a tavern to collect money from the bartender. He spends a few minutes matter-of-factly insulting the man — and his family members — before retrieving what cash he can and putting a bullet in the man’s head.
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Louie is soon called to meet with his boss, Joe Black (John Malkovich), who tells him about the opportunity to possess the long-thought-lost text and the resulting haul, which would mean Louie wouldn’t have to kill for money anymore. (Although, while the opinionated thug says he doesn’t enjoy the work, he doesn’t seem to mind it all that much, either.)
Nick is then brought into the fold, and he and Louie are off to Italy via private jet.
To go much deeper into the goings-on would be to drift into spoiler territory, but know that as Nick leads the effort to authenticate the pages — a difficult and complicated endeavor, to say the least — he correctly lays into Joe and Louie for the latter’s wildly reckless behavior … only to then act wildly recklessly himself.
Meanwhile, he grows close to a professional associate, Giulietta (Gadot), and the two become infatuated with each other.
In the long-ago timeline, Gadot portrays Dante’s wife, Gemma Donati, who failed to inspire him the way his unrequited muse, the late Beatrice, did.
The seemingly more significant figure to Dante is a man known as Isaiah (acclaimed filmmaker Martin Scorsese, who’s also a producer on the film), a Jewish intellectual who quickly becomes his mentor. Their philosophical conversations help ground a film that at times feels as if it is flailing its arms.
“In the Hand of Dante” does, of course, have some things to say about the soul and art that serve as food for thought. For instance, Nick tells Joe in their first meeting that he used to love the “Divine Comedy” but now simply likes it.
“You look at anything long enough, no matter how beautiful it is, you see what’s wrong with it,” he says.
Isaac, who played a supporting role in Schnabel’s 2018 impressionistic Vincent van Gogh biopic, “At Eternity’s Gate” — for which Willem Dafoe earned an Academy Award nomination — and who recently starred in the second season of the Netflix anthology series “Beef,” is compelling as usual. And he enjoys an effortless chemistry with “Wonder Woman” star Gadot.
Original article‘Beef’ Season Two review: Anthology series a little chewy in stretches
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