I love the Divine Comedy, at least the Inferno, where Virgil guides Dante through the stages of hell. He puts the sodomites in the Seventh Circle, where fire rains down on those who "do violence against nature," but at least it permitted me to
mention LGBT people in an Italian class in the 1980s, when otherwise the rule was "Don't mention them, they don't exist."
So I'm going to watch the new movie In the Hands of Dante, about the discovery of an original Divine Comedy manuscript. Maybe there will be gay characters, probably not, but I'll still get to hear that beginning phrase again: Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita, mi ritrovai per una selva oscura.
Scene 1: Dante climbs a rocky cliff. Meanwhile, sometimes in the 1940s or 1950s, an obnoxious novelist (Oscar Isaacs) complains to his friend that his books can't be edited. "I'd rather the stableboy f*ck my wife than see my work edited." Heterosexual identity established immediately after his obnoxiousness.
Oscar Isaacs' backside
"So, what's your book about?"
"It's a translation of Dante's Divine Comedy. I've been working on it for ten years."
Friend squeezes his shoulder. "You're still hot after ten years." Wait -- are you flirting with him?
" By the way, who is Dante?" Say what? Who doesn't know Dante?
"An old dead guy. But he got trapped in the cage of rhyme and meter. I'm breaking out, so my translation will be far superior to the original." The greatest work in Italian literature? You planning to improve on "Hamlet" next?
Scene 2: Newark, 1969. A young boy snters a middle-class house and tells his Uncle, "I just killed some kid." He explains that the boy (Gavin Weingarten) had a big knife, and asked if he wanted to die. He tried to defend himself, they struggled, and he managed to stab Knife Boy.
Scene 3: Bora Bora, seaside, 2001. Our Hero on a hammock, writing in his notebook about "creamy white gardenia blossoms" and "faded petroglyphs." So you must be the Boy who killed someone, now middle aged, but it's a parallel world with the look and feel of the 1950s: no computers or cell phones, men wear hats and smoke constantly, writers use pencils.
Cut to the Young Dante sitting under a tree, looking at the Illimitible Sky.
Scene 4: New York, 2001, "That time when the daylight sky was an oppressive, low-lying glare of white, and the dark of night was..." So, summer. Is this one of your stories, or really happening in-universe? A greasy-haired guy named Louie (Gerard Butler, but blond and greasy) saunters into a closed bar and orders a Dewars and water. He criticizes the bartender's moustache: "You see a guy with a moustache, he's either a cop or a (homophobic slur)."
I expected L'amor che move il sole e l'altre stelle, the love that moves the sun and the stars, and I'm getting Charles Bukowski, homophobia, and a parallel world where the 1950s never ended.
"By the way, you ever take it up the ass?" Louie asks. "Might make a man out of you." But then he calls him a c*cksucker. Twice. Are you homophobic or not, buddy?
He criticizes the Bartender and his wife for being excessively ugly, and threatens his nine-year old daughter.
Next topic of conversation: the Bartender's Uncle, "a real fuckup," who opened the bar, but pissed his money away gambling. Wait, is that the Uncle from 1969? So the Bartender is Our Hero? But he's supposed to be in Bora Bora, writing pretentious crap. And the Uncle was elderly in 1969. No way he's alive in 2001.
Unc owes the gang a lot of money, so his nephew the Bartender is going to provide it. Louie takes tonight's proceeds, $1,200, then orders the Bartender to go down on him. But he shoots him as soon as he gets on his knees.
What does this have to do with Dante?
More after the break. Caution: It gets more confusing, but there are cocks.
Scene 4: Our Hero crying as he looks at the picture of a little girl. Is this the Bartender's daughter, who was just threatened?
He tells us that a young adult lady called him Nick, and then "Daddy." So you were dating the Bartender's daughter -- but she was nine years old in 2001. Have we jumped ahead to 2026? Or is she a different person, and you were looking at a photo of the bartender's daughter to confuse viewers? He kisses her goodbye as she is crying. I'm crying, too, in frustration over this nonsensical plot.
Cut to the EMTs taking her body away.
Cut to Our Hero, drunk and injured (a bloody bandage on his leg), climbing the rocks of Bora Bora. He falls into the water, delighted: "I feel nothing of these open rocks."
Scene 5: Louie the Homophobe is just starting to open hiis extra-large pizza box when he gets a phone call, summoning him to an Old Guy's office. He criticizes the Rembrandt behind his desk, an "ugly piece of shit," which may not be a wise move when addressing your boss.
Old Guy has a job that will make Louie so rich that he won't have shoot people anymore. "This is bigger than anyone ever dreampt anything could be." His cut will be a million dollars, maybe two. That' s more than anyone ever dreamed of? About 7% of the U.S. population are millionaires.
He won't say more abou tthe job, just that Lefty is bringing in this friend of his, a writer, who will get things going. So the Bartender had nothing to do with Our Hero, and the fact that they both had uncles was just added to confuse viewers.
Louie returns to his hotel room and eats his pizza. Hey, he's wearing a lady's bra. A crossdressing homophobic hit man?
Scene 6: Our Hero is being chauffeured through New York. He calls his office to see if any money has arrived. Just a few checks, and an offer from Germany for 3,000 marks, and his editor called to suggest a subtitle for his new book. "Nope," he says in 300 words of pretentious over-vergiage. Wait -- he uses a cell phone. I thought they didn't exist in this 1950s world.
Lefty is played by Louis Cancelmi ("Cancel me?"). You may have seen this nude shot before.
Old Guy explains why they summoned Our Hero with a story (do you have to?): A Sicilian dude named Don Lecco (Lorenzo Zurzolo, top photo and left) killed his father, who had disgraced his mother. He dragged the body out onto the street. Then he barricaded himself in his house and shot anyone who tried to approach, until three men from Palermo appeared and made him the capo of the town. The Big Man, like a Mafia godfather.
He befriended a young kid, who went to work at the Vatican, and 70 years later, found a secret room full of manuscripts, including the original manuscript of what would be called The Divine Comedy. Apparently he gave it to Don Lecco, since it's now in Palermo. Old Guy wants Our Hero to go retrieve it.
What was the point of all that mishegas? Just say that you found the original manuscript.
Scene 8: Louie the Homophobe and Our Hero smoking and drinking on the flight. They arrive at Don Lecco's villa, and the Priest shows them the manuscript. Is he trying to determine its authenticity? Wouldn't you need an expert on Medieval manuscripts, and a lot of scientific tests?
While Our Hero is examining it, Louie the Homophobe shoots the servant, Don Lecco, the Priest, and his dog. They then drive to an auto garage, where they burn their passports and shoot some more people (I'm not sure why), and take a taxi to the airport. Why did Our Hero come along? Couldn't Louie have killed everyone and stolen the manuscript by himself?
On the way back, they have a nonsequiter conversation about dog breeds, how disgusting it is to have to pick up their poop while walking them, and sex with corpses Louie the Homophobe has thought about it, but he doesn't usually get to kill attractive women (described in a slew of misogynistic verbiage).
Scene 9: We finally get to Medieval Italy: Florence, 1302. A woman is cooking and gazing longingly at the 35-year old Dante (midway through life's journey), as he speaks to someone else.
Cut to her or someone else asking about the teenage Dante as he rides into town. He gazes at a young girl standing at the church door. The original Girl of My Dreams gaze! This is Beatrice, whom Dante was in love with throughout his life, although he only saw her a few times, from a distance, and never spoke to her.
Back on the airplane, Our Hero quotes Dante's description of that first sight: "A Deity stronger than me, who coming, will rule over me." The Eternal Feminine that even today parents tell their sons that they must devote their lives to finding, winning, and gazing in awe at. But it actually owes more to Medieval Arthurian romances.
He tells Louie the Homophobe that the woman gazing at Dante at the start of the scene is Gemma, whom he married but didn't care a whit about.
Scene 10: Back in Florence, Dante (now played by Our Hero), is visited by his former friend, Guido Cavalcanti, poet of the Dolce Stil Nuova. Dante signed a decree exiling him for joining the Guelphs (backing the Pope) instead of the Ghibellines (backing the Holy Roman Empire).
I can't believe that there's 100 minutes of this sludge left. I'm out.
Beefcake: Our Hero and Louie the Homophobe take their shirts off.
Heterosexism: Dante and Beatrice are the original heterosexist couple, of course. I think Our Hero gets a girlfriend.
LGBTQ Characters: Lefty seems to be interested in Our Hero, but they only interact briefly, so the queer code is minimal. The crossdressing homophobe, maybe.
Our Hero: I just discovered that Our Hero, Nick Tosches, is a fictionalized version of the real-life Nick Tosches who wrote the original novel. Why on Earth did he make himself so unpleasant?
My Grade: Endlessly confusing misdirections, reduplications for no reason, a premise that makes no sense, lots of pretentious crap, and a 1950s film noir set in the 2000s. homophobic slurs.
Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate, or in English, F-
Left: A Sicilian guy.
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