RG
Roberto Giacomelli
•On the space prison Dante 01, constantly in orbit around the incandescent planet Dante XXI, a shuttle arrives carrying the biologist Elise and an unknown criminal with no memory or identity. Dante 01 is populated by six ferocious criminals subjected to genetic experiments by a team of scientists led by Caronte. But the arrival of the unknown, quickly dubbed San Giorgio by the other inmates, begins to put the equilibrium of all the residents of Dante 01 to the test. Cesare feels threatened by San Giorgio's presence and attempts to incite a rebellion, but at the same time, San Giorgio demonstrates having incredible healing powers.
You, spectators who are about to enter the universe of "Dante 01", abandon all hope of spending 88 minutes in the company of good science fiction. The film, directed by the little-active Marc Caro (co-director of "Delicatessen" and "The City of Lost Children"), is a very diluted summary of cultured science fiction, a confused and sometimes arduous mix where Kubrickian suggestions, the Divine Comedy, "Alien 3", mysticism, and "The Green Mile" are blended together, without a precise criterion, perhaps just because one would like to make a few critics tired of "Star Wars", "Matrix", and various wars of the worlds salivate.
Much applause to Caro's "high" intentions, but the French director, orphan of his more talented colleague Jean-Pierre Jeunet, makes a big mess and his "Dante 01", in the end, is more like an exploitation product with delusions of grandeur, rather than the French answer to "2001: A Space Odyssey".
Let's start with the most macroscopic sin that stains the defective toy "Dante 01": extremely boring. The hour and a half duration seems like an eternity for the viewer simply because that little that represents the narrative core of "Dante 01" is poorly told. The story can be generalized in a few words: an unknown new messiah confronts sinners with their sins and gives them the opportunity to redeem themselves. That's all. Caro found a mystical parable and presented it as a science fiction film, unfortunately, he forgot who should benefit from his work; and here the viewer finds himself aging mentally by at least 60 years in 90 minutes, stunned by boring dialogues, divine metaphors, infantile nomenclature, total lack of dynamism, sad sets, and annoying characters.
The great christological metaphor that hovers over the entire film and that is shamelessly flaunted in the unbearable ending that seems to imitate Kubrick's Space Odyssey, is too sterile and already exposed elsewhere (and better) to represent a real motive of retroactive interest. The game of the names of the characters that refer to the Dantesque and religious imagination, often without a real reason, is ultimately gratuitous and childish. You know those light-hearted horror films like "Dimensione Terrore" and "Final Destination" in which the characters are named Carpenter, Romero, Browning, Lewton, etc.? Well, in "Dante 01" the same thing was done, only instead of the names of famous genre directors, we find ourselves without reason with names taken haphazardly from the Divine Comedy and Christian and Eastern mythology... thus, because it seems more intellectual.
A demerit note also to the shoddy screenplay written by Caro himself and by Pierre Bordage, in which the repetitiveness of the action is alternated with boring mystico-technological dialogues and logical holes too big to go unnoticed.
The cast, in general, appears varied and interesting, composed of professionals and good character actors. Lambert Wilson ("Matrix Reloaded"; "Babylon A.D."), Dominique Pinon ("Delicatessen"; "Alien: The Clone"), Bruno Lochet ("Cous Cous"), François Hadji-Lazaro ("Dellamorte Dellamore") do their best and seem credible, but unfortunately, their characters are not very interesting and poorly characterized, limited by the "historical" name with which they have been endowed.
If Caro's hand is sometimes interesting, as is the ultra-dark photography of Jean Poisson, the sets by Bertrand Seitz seem recycled from the set of an old science fiction film, resulting only particularly monotonous. Few but good special effects.
In conclusion, "Dante 01" disappoints. It surely disappoints the viewer eager for entertainment and probably disappoints the more intellectual viewer as well, due to a derivative style decidedly cumbersome.
Give us back Kubrick.
