Dante 01

Watched a good movie?
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d.a.walker
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Dante 01

Post by d.a.walker »

This is one of those films that you'll either get a lot out of or it will totally bypass you and leave you cold.

The story is an identity-less man arrives with a young psychologist to a remote high security psychicatric prison space station called Dante 01, orbiting a very unstable hot planet called Dante.

The researcher is there to carry out neurological groundbreaking tests on the inmates. During the first trial, the first prisoner reacts badly to the treatment and appears to be dying. The unknown prisoner somehow saves his life literally bringing him back from the dead. This act divides the staff and the prisoners on whether the unknown man (who they've nicknamed St George from a tattoo on his arm depicting the saint and the dragon) as to whether he is the monster or the saviour.

It was directed by Caro, one of the directors behind Delicatessen and City Of Lost Children, two of my all time favourite films. The film suffered a huge production set back when the producers slashed the budget in half midway through filming. The finished film is a strange sci-fi pitched between Sunshine and 2001. It's also widely known that Caro has stated that the film is basically unfinished due to the budget cut.

I personally thoroughly enjoyed it, there is a mass of religious and mythological references throughout the movie, it looks fantastic and is awash with the style you'd expect from the man behind Delicatessen and City Of Lost Children. The ending does, slightly, disappoint. That said what we have at the end is rather spectacular in itself from a visual point of view. It's such a shame that this directors first film in nearly 15 years suffered at the hands of the producers. I reckon that if they'd left the budget as it should have been, this film would have been an astonishing piece of film making, rather than a flawed gem.

Still worth checking out and I'd love to hear what other people have made of this film.
I dreamed of 747's, over geometric farms...

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