In the Hand of Dante review – Gerard Butler is jaw-dropping in bizarre Renaissance mafia reverie

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Julian Schnabel’s combustible mix of lowlife cynicism and high art – along with cameos from Martin Scorsese and Al Pacino – powers this outrageous black comedy revolving around Dante’s Divine Comedy The worlds of Renaissance manuscript scholarship and organised crime come together like a mix of Umberto Eco and George V Higgins in this flawed but fascinating reverie from director and co-writer Julian Schnabel. Switching between monochrome and colour, and freely adapted from the Nick Tosches novel of the same name, it is hilarious and shocking, at least at first, with a quite extraordinary tough-guy role for Gerard Butler. It is a mysterious, scabrous and bizarre adventure in violent larceny and spiritual crisis which unfortunately unwinds in the end into sentimental fantasy. In the Hand of Dante amounts to an epic and self-aware jeu d’ésprit with amazing cameos from Martin Scorsese, Al Pacino and Franco Nero, beckoning its audience over to peep into the fathomless abyss of heaven and ...
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Mia Hansen-Løve: ‘I’d rather not film sex scenes than have virtue police on set’

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The French director on making the closest thing to an autobiography, stripping Léa Seydoux of her glamour and dating fellow film-makers

French screenwriter and director Mia Hansen-Løve, 42, was born in Paris to parents who were both philosophy professors. She studied German at university, then had stints as an actor and film critic before making her directorial debut in 2007 with All Is Forgiven. Her subsequent films include Father of My Children, Goodbye First Love, Eden and Bergman Island. Her new film, One Fine Morning, is about a single mother caring for her ailing father while embarking upon a new romance. She lives near Paris with her partner, film-maker Laurent Perreau, and their children.

How closely was your new film, One Fine Morning, inspired by your own late father’s illness?
All my films, in one way or another, use autobiographical elements. Or I should say biographical, because the majority are not inspired by my own story but those of people dear to me. But this one is probably the closest to a self-portrait. The character of Georg has the same disease my father had – a rare degenerative condition called Benson’s syndrome. When I was writing the screenplay, he was still alive and I was visiting him, like Georg’s daughter Sandra in the film. So those scenes were inspired by very fresh memories. I had the intuition that if I didn’t write about it right now, I never would. If I’d waited, I wouldn’t find the courage to turn back and look at these painful moments. But that’s only half the inspiration. The other half is a new love, the rediscovery of happiness, and how to balance those simultaneous feelings of grief and joy.

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