Dante 01

I really wanted to like this film, since I've had good luck with French flicks lately as well as being interested in the neat little cast assembled here. Among them are Lambert Wilson (the Merovingian himself) and Dominique Pinon (Delicatessen, Amelie, etc...). Mix in a little Cube, throw in a dash of Alien 3 and sprinkle in some Powder for good measure and you have the undercooked hodgepodge of Dante 01. Good sci-fi is hard to come by these days, mainly because I think it's the most high concept genre of film as well as the hardest to execute really well. Unfortunately, despite some very interesting ideas and good production values, it doesn't add up to much of anything when it was all over. Wilson's main character has almost zero lines in the film and isn't really even a main character. If you're going to have your main character remain essentially silent, that's fine, but for the love of Odin please make him interesting. I completely understood what was going on, but it just didn't register with me as much as I was hoping it would. There is a sequence just before the last shot of the film with Wilson outside in space that was just so agonizingly excessive that I was swearing at the screen for it to stop, which I hardly ever do. Maybe you'll have a different opinion, which is fine. But for me, no dice.

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.

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.

Not a bad film, just not a good film. Started off strong, but ended poorly. A great first effort by the director - shows a lot of promise. The acting was pretty weak overall, but the material was thin. The production was pretty good for a cheap sci-fi.

The Christian symbolism was laid on so thick you could actually smell it. It wasn't even symbolism - it was iconography. Some christians and non-christians alike will find it offensive or tedious for that reason. It is hard to promote any given religion in a film without coming off lame.

Hope we see more sci-fi from France.