“Narratively bland and formally bewildering.”

Two statements can be true, even if they are contradictory to one another. For example, we can acknowledge that Julian Schnabel is one of the great artists of his generation, someone who has mastered different formats and flirted with every conceivable visual medium. We can also say that his latest directorial outing In the Hand of Dante (an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Nick Tosches) is an outright disaster. A heavy-handed mess of a film that believes it is far more profound and daring than it ever had the capacity to be, it falls apart at the seams from the very beginning. Like the novel, the film consists of dual narratives based around the legacy of Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy. The first is set in the late Middle Ages, and is about Dante himself as he writes his masterpiece, while the second takes place in the early 2000s, and follows a fictionalised version of Tosches as he is called in to verify the authenticity of a supposed handwritten copy of the book. The duelling perspectives offer insights into the creative process, the publishing industry and the act of artistic expression, and the limitations that can weigh down the efforts of those who simply feel the urge to create. Unfortunately, despite promising source material and a competent group of artists on both sides of the camera, In the Hand of Dante doesn’t live up to its potential and becomes an overwrought, deeply unsettling jumble of ideas, none of which are all that interesting or worth our time.

The act of creation is a theme that has been frequently explored on film, and it can range from being genuinely insightful to frankly self-indulgent, depending on the perspective of the person telling the story as well as their overall intentions. Schnabel has demonstrated a fascination with stories about artists – two of his greatest achievements are Basquiat and At Eternity’s Gate, vaguely experimental but profoundly moving biographical accounts of the lives of two immensely important visual artists. Here he turns his sights to the written word, examining a few chapters in the life of Dante and his efforts to write what would come to be seen as one of the most remarkable works of literature. This is contrasted with the story of a writer who finds himself struggling in his own way – he can be endlessly creative, but suffers under a one-dimensional, draconian publishing industry that doesn’t appreciate artistry so much as it prioritises commercial performance. The implications of what both Schnabel and Tosches (who wrote himself into the saga as the protagonist in both storylines, with half the narrative being his observations in the present day, and the other half filtered through what he imagined Dante experienced) are saying here are certainly not ambiguous, since the text and this adaptation are built around examining the creative process as a challenging labyrinth that not even the smartest and most resourceful of artists can navigate without difficulty.

Unfortunately, the potential of In the Hand of Dante is almost immediately squandered when we discover that the surrounding film is not as insightful as we hoped. In fact, it often seems to be working against itself, since every ounce of promise it had at the outset is mangled by the director’s peculiar approach to bringing the story to life. Schnabel has never been one to adhere to rules of any given medium, and his tendency to march to the beat of his own drum has earned him as many devotees as he has detractors. Needless to say, this film gives the latter much more credibility, since this is a film burdened with too much ambition and not enough practicality. The term “style over substance” has become dreadfully over-used, and it’s quite a shallow way of looking at art – but in cases like this it’s perfectly applicable. In the Hand of Dante is less about the ideas and more about the spectacle, and the lengths to which the director goes to showcase his supposedly subversive approach to examining the act of creation, which in reality proves to be one-dimensional and bland. Some striking imagery (including half of the film being shot in stunning black-and-white) is not enough to distract us from the scattered nature of the story, which introduces several themes but is not willing to follow through on any of them, becoming very narrow in its perspective despite the years of experience that went into the construction of this film. 

We can’t even look towards the actors to redeem the film, since for every John Malkovich and Al Pacino there is a Jason Momoa or Gal Gadot, cast for reasons that cannot be understood. Very rarely have we found a film like this in which nearly everyone is miscast. Oscar Isaac plays dual roles as Tosches and Dante (supporting the idea that the author used the esteemed historical writer as a surrogate for his own ramblings about artistry, which is another issue entirely), and he does what he can to tie the film together. But ultimately he seems to be left to his own devices, with Schnabel not doing much to foster a more interesting performance despite the opportunity to create something quite remarkable. He’s supported by a sprawling ensemble, with many of the director’s friends and admirers being enlisted to take on roles in a film that seemed to believe it was strong enough to justify some genuinely bizarre choices. At first it’s at least partially entertaining, but after some time the novelty wears off, and not even people like Martin Scorsese (in a rare acting performance, playing Dante’s mentor as one of the more inspired casting decisions in this film) or the many fantastic Italian character actors can salvage the film and make its shortcomings less prominent. Very little attention is put into these characters, with character motivations and even practical aspects such as accents or costumes feeling like an afterthought, an unnecessary burden on a director who would clearly much prefer the decadence of his own vision to anything even remotely engaging.

If this film proves anything, it is that even the greatest artists are capable of failure, and if we try to find meaning in these works, it becomes less a matter of appreciating them for what they are than an attempt to justify some strange directorial decisions. This is the kind of film that makes the protagonist say “I put a hole where his soul used to be”, and genuinely tries to convince us that this is some profound, complex statement on the root cause of violence and how ordinary people can be driven to extreme measures, rather than a hopelessly clichéd sentiment that is as nonsensical as it is frivolous. This can be said for both the screenplay – which Schnabel wrote with his wife Louise Kugelberg, a previous collaborator on At Eternity’s Gate (in which the same grandstanding prose also existed, but felt much more genuine and purposeful) – and the film’s overall intentions. There are countless instances where In the Hand of Dante proves to be a heavy-handed, chaotic bundle of misguided ideas, poor performances and questionable directorial decisions, none of which are ever capable of elevating the work beyond mediocrity at the best of times. It doesn’t help that the film approaches three hours in length, a bewildering decision that shows that even the editing was not a priority. Bloated, insincere and not even interesting enough for us to appreciate its audacity, In the Hand of Dante is narratively bland and formally bewildering, the multitude of ideas being wasted. It removes all potential for this film to say something even vaguely interesting, making this less of an artistic statement and more a test of our endurance and patience.