Italy
4*
Director:
Giuseppe de Liguoro
Screenwriter:
Dante Alighieri
Director of Photography:
Emilio Roncarolo
Running time: 68 minutes
Original title: L’Inferno
Though creaking a bit with a load of peripheral characters that appear for a mere handful of seconds, as they are usually physically constricted from moving around, this very first filmic depiction of the “Inferno” part of Dante’s Divine Comedy is a remarkable visualisation of the story in a way that the cinema had not really taken advantage of before.
The one striking exception is the director whose style certainly influenced director Giuseppe de Liguoro: Georges Méliès, whose formative tendency (films whose meaning was enriched, even informed, by their visual style, in contrast with the Lumière brothers’ documentary-like films that strove to capture the world as it is without demonstrating any real creativity from the filmmakers, except for their placement of the camera) is on full display in this film that takes place in the underworld.
The film’s opening montage already gives us a peek into the underworld, presenting us with fragments of despair whose characters or settings we do not know yet (they will all be revealed over the course of the film), but the writhing bodies present a world undeniably abhorrent that rapidly comes into view.
Dante’s Inferno is very text-heavy as a screen full of words precedes nearly every scene, and this screen tells us what we are about to see and especially who the diverse assortment of characters are that Dante and his guide, the poet Virgil, meet on their way through he underworld. The problem is that the film’s one-hour length means the entire journey has to be condensed and all of the duo’s interactions with the condemned last a very short amount of time.
Sometimes, the names of the characters are onscreen for a longer period of time than the physical individuals themselves. But Dante carries on, carried – as are we, the viewers – by the trance-like music that accompanies the film’s most recent release, of the German electronic band Tangerine Dream.
There are many noteworthy special effects in the film, and the moments when Dante or Virgil or Dante’s muse, the young Beatrice who has an impressive spinning halo above her head, lift off to float away or fly off are very effective and do not seem as rudimentary as one might have expected. It’s pure Méliès for the contemporary viewer: at once fantastical and uncanny because of the slight awkwardness of the movements or the stammering nature of such an old film of which not all the frames were in perfect condition.
Sometimes, the use of superimposition and even of forced perspective (see, for example, Dante and Virgil meeting the giant Antaeus) is equally splendid. At another point, a headless man appears holding his own head – it is very easy to guess how this was done, but the effect is rather good.
Famously, Dante is reminded to “Abandon all hope [ye who enter here]” and the images we get certainly fit very well with this notion. Those trapped down below have been sentenced to suffer for their sins for all eternity and the variety of ways in which they have to pay for their time spent on earth can make for rather uncomfortable viewing, from the Summonists (those who have cheated the Church) trapped with their heads buried in the sand, and the spendthrifts who have to roll bags of gold around their circle, to the hypocrites wearing cloaks of gold on the outside but filled with lead on the inside.
Dante is a bit of a wuss, as he faints or screams all the way through Hell, once even pulling a tuft of hair from a head sticking out of the ground, but on the other hand the majestic Virgil, wearing a white sheet and wearing an olive wreath on his head in the style of an Olympic Games winner, and gesticulating hither and thither in extremely melodramatic fashion, doesn’t make any better an impression.
It is a frightening moment when Homer, Horace, Ovid and Lucanus appear and give the travelling duo the Roman salute, as within a few years of the film’s release, it would be co-opted by the fascists in Italy and Germany and become the Hitler salute.
This world where steam seems to be everywhere is a place where no one wants to end up. It is a place of endless misery, and the film presents a thorough catalogue of the pain and suffering that awaits those who choose to live according to their own vices and desires. It is sometimes rather obvious that the story was conceived on the first level to warn Dante’s fellow Florentines of their reckless behaviour, but the rundown of the levels of Hell makes for a powerful visual argument against immorality.
The film is unfortunately very episodic, and even the relationship between the two main characters, Dante and Virgil, is not allowed to develop. But as a purely visual experience, this film is a feast.