Dante 01

“Dante 01” is a French film directed by Marc Caro. I was interested in it mainly because of the setting – a psychiatric detention center in outer space. I was maybe hoping to see something in lines of Enki Bilal’s “Immortal”. Well, it turned out nothing like it.

Dante 01, the before mentioned psychiatric detention center holds seven patients, 3 medics and two security guards. One of the seven is Unknown, a mysterious man found alone on a derelict spaceship. It turns out he has equally mysterious healing powers. Along with him arrived a new doctor who wants to test a new technology on these seven people – the DNA repairing nanobots that would “correct” your illness in the DNA itself.

You would believe that this is just the plot outline, but it’s not. It’s actually THE plot. What do I mean? Well, that is it. In “Dante 01”, not a single thing is explained, and it’s full of loose ends. You’d believe that the character’s action’s lead to a revelation of some sort at the end. Well, Unknown will remain unknown. All he does is wander around in a delirious state of mind and you’re not sure what of the things he sees are real and what aren’t. You also won’t find out what happened to him in the spaceship where he was found. You won’t find out why he got healing powers. Maybe he is just a lunatic, maybe he is God, or the son of God, or an angel, or even the Devil, or all of that. You won’t find out and you won’t even be given a hint, but the religious message is pretty obvious.

Now, I’m not stupid in a way I need everything to be spelled out to me like I’m some kind of an idiot, but the problem with “Dante 01” is that probably even the screenwriter doesn’t know. It is OK to leave some things in the film open to interpretations (like what was in the briefcase in “Pulp Fiction” or the box in “Hell Ride”, or what exactly was Ryan Reynolds in “The Nines” or who was the person coming out of the building in “Prince of Darkness”). What is not OK is to actually leave the whole plot a mystery. As a matter of fact, the whole script does not have plot, it’s one big giant filler scene for the basic plot outline. And that is why I can’t shake the feeling we’ve been presented with a half-assed story. I could make a film – a mysterious killer with mysterious powers is roaming in NY. Now, that can be either hard because you’ll have to create a tale out of it. Who is the killer, his motives, etc. and explain it all. Or… I can just leave it at that and create random dialogue to fill some 90 or so blank pages. I think you get what I mean.

The weirdest thing is that “Dante 01" isn’t actually a bad film. It created a claustrophobic atmosphere, mainly due to its dark sets. The sound effects certainly (I’ll call them that because there is no real music in the film) helped a bit. The acting was alright, if you could call it acting considering the fact that the main character only spoke two words and got probably the less screen time.

The question that might pop out - whose fault is it that "Dante 01" is such a mess? The majority would blame the director. I've read that Caro was very unhappy with the editing. Compare this with the lack of proper marketing and you have a fiasco in your hands. No one and all would be the right answer to the question. Or better yet, let's leave it a mystery.

So, what is the final verdict? To see or not to see? And to tell you the truth – I haven’t got a fucking clue. I don’t even know what rating to give it, as I am not entirely sure what I saw. But maybe that’s what it was all about – for you to fill in the blanks (a huge amount them). That way every person will see a different film. I give “my version” a…

Rating: 5/10

- review by Ventilation Shaft