Dante 01 (2008)

I had the pleasure of watching this movie yesterday and wasn't disappointed. I had been waiting for Caro's next work with great anticipation and I consider this movie to be a success on every level, with the only disappointment being that it didn't seem to have been released in many theaters in France, I hope it'll fare better in other countries.

This movie isn't an epic by any means. The story takes place in a psychiatric facility orbiting around a burning planet deep in space, and populated by little more than a dozen people, so the scale is pretty intimist. The patients of this space hospital are all death row inmates who have agreed to serve as guinea pigs for behavior-changing treatments in order to win a few years of life. The routines of the whole compound are disrupted when a new patient with intriguing abilities (Lambert) arrives, escorted by a new doctor (the beautiful Linh Dan Pham) ordered to test new treatments on the inmates.

You will soon realize upon watching the first few minutes of this movie that everything that happens in it is a metaphor, and that's all I will say about that in order not to spoil anything.

I have nothing but praise for all the elements of this movie. The actors are top notch (especially the inmates), as well as the direction, the art direction and the story, which all together manage with great success the most important aspect of any movie of that kind: to suspend our disbelief. The immersion was complete and I have not for one second questioned the how's and why's of the setting. The movie didn't feel too long or too short, and the ending was satisfying and brought a sufficient amount of closure while still leaving many aspects of the story open for personal interpretation.

Overall a great experience that I would recommend to anyone.

Fmovies: Trembling camera, darkness and greyness of station, bald skulls, psychedelic music, nanotechnologies, strange organisms - all this is not immerses you in the movie but rather annoys, creates a sense of pretentiousness, grotesque of observed on the screen.

It is not clear why resort to such vulgar and, moreover, hackneyed painting. The movie would have benefited from a serious realism, but it seems grotesque and theatricality, a disease not only of French literature, but also of French cinema.

However the director wanted to tell us a lot - about the cruelty of Buddhism, the inhumanity of corporations and wickedness of people, and that it is not clear who is worse - prisoners or guards and, perhaps, the door between them was high time to open. And that even in the brutal hell you can show kindness and dedication by overcoming darkness in yourself and, thus, reducing the size of hell or destroy it as the "Saint George".

4 out of 10

Any fan of the imagination rich City of Lost Children and Delicatessen should know that both were helmed by Jean Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro. Jeunet has gone solo and done magnificently for himself with films like A Very Long Engagement. And now Mr. Caro steps into the director chair alone. For fans of said above films, getting the chance to see a new film by either is like asking me if I would like some Mountain Dew. God, yes!

The picture revolves around a space station which is being used as psychiatric prison that consists of a population of 7 prisoners and a team of 5 employees. At the beginning of the film a new scientist and a mysterious new patient is brought aboard the ship. With these two the station begins unraveling from it's normal routines and begins heading into violent and unbelievable territories. The crew begins arguing with one another because of the new scientist's ideals and orders, while the prisoners are freaking out due to the new prisoners nature and abilities. With everything coming to ahead the prison is beginning to fall apart.

From what I can gather from the other reviews this film is pretty much hit or miss. I'm on the side who dug it. The film more than anything is very familiar in the sense that you know it's directed by Caro. It's stylish with great camera shots and it has an atmosphere that oozes scifi prison. And with familiar actors from past Jeunet and Caro films like Mr. Pinon, there's no complaining whatsoever in the acting department. The writing itself is also very good. It's well thought out, interesting and intelligent. Caro and Jeunet are always great at delivering good dialogue and this is no different.

My issue with the film lies within the story itself. The film plays mostly like a mystery. The new scientist is doing experiments on the prisoners and you obviously know it's pretty inhumane, but you don't (me, I didn't) ever grip exactly what's going on with the treatments. And with our mysterious prisoner, you do by the end understand who he is and what he's about (kinda), but up to this point it's very up in the air. And there are a few scenes when the scientists are talking among each other where the movie begins to drag a little bit. Nevertheless, the movie plays out in an intriguing fashion with more than enough things going on that kept this viewer happy and entertained.

I see some pretty petty gripes some people are having with the film concerning symbolism and that it felt like it wasn't long enough. I do agree with the length issue because it seemed the movie would have benefited with a tad more explanations. But the symbolism issue is solely based on that person's issue with beliefs. That stuff bothers you, then you'll have an issue. Doesn't bother me in the slightest.

Dante 01 overall is a unique, interesting film with a fantastic look and feel, but it does feel like it could have been much better. With that said I enjoyed it and this flick should definitely be seen by all fans of Caro.

Dante 01 fmovies. I used to be a fan of Caro, being french and grown up in the 90's, and being a visual effects artist. I can't believe how bad this film come back turned out to be! I watched it all as respect for the cast, which is good, but to no avail... Poor story line, vague plot, even vaguer religious connotations. The references to Solaris really made me angry, being a fan of that film (the original Russian version, Tarkosky's). What nerve using such a mater piece with such superficiality! It does look like a production butchered film... but to be honest I found the production design bad, that mix of retro and space technology simply doesn't work here. And the visual effects and artistic direction very poor and repetitive. OK it seems like money was scarce... but also seems like no real effort was made. What a shame...

Still, waiting for more Caro, this had to be an accident!

So, there is this space prison filled with bald criminals...heard this one before? Corporate scientist Elisa (Linh Dan Pham) arrives on a prison ship with plans of using the felons as guinea pigs for a new DNA altering serum. Also arriving on the shuttle is new prisoner St. Georges (Lambert Wilson). Quickly thrown into the tiny populace, the prisoners notice something is not right with the new inmate when he begins miraculously healing other inmates.

Marc Caro - co-director of the DELICATESSEN and THE CITY OF LOST CHILDREN - makes his long awaited return to feature film-making but, unfortunately, this seems a step back. The film is visually stunning but the religious allegory heavy plot doesn't do it any favors as Caro seems to be mimicking 2001 and SOLARIS. This moves along at a pretty deliberate pace until an ending pops up that will make you scramble for the DVD menu, thinking you've inadvertently skipped a chapter. It literally comes out of nowhere and you can almost hear the money men pulling out of the project (reportedly last minute financial woes forced Caro to change his original ending). Interestingly, the US DVD has a 30-minute "making of" extra and co-writer Pierre Bordage mentions this was a project originally developed for Alejandro Jodorowsky. There is a great cast including DELICATESSEN lead Dominique Pinon and DELLAMORTE co-star François Hadji-Lazaro.

Considering Caro's past work in the movie field, one can really look forward to see his latest film as director : Dante 01.

Well I have to say I was for one really eager to do so and as I watched the movie, even as a full open minded viewer, some scenes were feeling just ... incomplete. The thematic is quite fine, a deep space station used as a psychiatric facility is exiting knowing the visual taste of Caro and the cast is well done too, but in the end every way you look at it the movie never fully unfold his potential.

The story, as mysterious it can be, fail to be emotional or understandable at any level which is really disappointing considering you can't connect to any character at all - especially not with the main one - having a feeling of emptiness despite the solid material that could have been used in a much better way.

The budget isn't large for this movie, that's obvious and still the director pulled some extremely good shots and some solid acting while being uneven at times (considering the budget, I can only guess that some takes as to be done only a few times), still, beyond that there is nothing to properly think of. As said, the story was somewhat promising at the beginning ... and sadly looks still promising at the end, it's a tale with a slow beginning and no real end or ground to rely on - an etheral narration with some pretty visuals and scenes empty of meaning.

If I were to make a comparison, I'd pick "The fountain". They look alike in many ways, sharing a radical vision of movie-making and story telling but where the fountain kept me involved in the character development process and opened some thoughts, "Dante 01" just got me lost somewhere loosing the meaning of it's concept - or maybe I never got it in the first place.

Overall, the movie itself isn't bad and you can see it without regrets it's still a nice movie but it's nothing more and that is probably the most disappointing thing about it : you don't feel more than looking at an OK film. Now, I do hope Caro will be directing again and with a better budget and more freedom over his uncompromising style, making this one just a trial step for better materials next time.