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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A Way Home review – Alzheimer’s and immigration in portrait of a disappearing past

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Karima Saïdi’s documentary movingly tries to shore up memories from her mother’s life, but the ethics of the process are uneasy

While caring for her mother Aïcha who has Alzheimer’s, film-maker Karima Saïdi often asks her the simple yet loaded question: “Where do you live?” At one point, her mother replies: “In a handkerchief”; a strangely poetic answer that encapsulates the mental haze of her condition. At other times she speaks of her childhood in Tangier, or the family home in Brussels where she saw her children grow up. As Aïcha’s mind wanders, Saïdi’s documentary transforms into a haven for her memories, which are fading fast.

This cinematic nest is built from old home videos and photographs, which tell of a turbulent immigrant life in Belgium. Saïdi’s older sister Amina was forced into marriage at the age of 15, and her brothers Jamal and Mohamed both died relatively young. Told through Saïdi’s sombre voiceover, these tragic events also incur questions for Aïcha, who is urged for confirmation as well as further details.

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