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Rating: At the end of watching, I was shocked, astonished, moved, disrupted, almost overwhelmed, an experience I will never forget! This film is not just a masterpiece; it is an experience!
1911, we are in Italy, a "Milano Films" production, "L'inferno," a cinematographic representation of Dante's "Inferno" from the "Divina Commedia." 1911, more than a hundred years ago, they put on film what I can undoubtedly consider the most shocking representation of darkness ever brought to the world of the seventh art.
Italian cinema started like this, something to give you chills, something that even makes you cry, though if we think about how it started off magnificently and has ended up now! This film is clear proof; in Italy, we started with cinema that aimed to be an art I would dare call almost "extreme." It couldn't have been easy to set up such a representation, to dare to that extent, to represent hell as it manifests in our imagination: fire, demons, full nudity, mutilated bodies, severed heads, cannibalism, metamorphosis, pain, agony, despair, and death, all brought masterfully in an hour of pure cinema.
The film consists of 54 scenes; it was a huge success, but the audience was puzzled, almost scandalized, and rightfully so. At the time, watching a film like this was truly an extraordinary experience. It was for me today in 2018, for someone like me who is used to seeing everything, imagine those who saw it in 1911. The film is undeniably a masterpiece, but it is not just a costume masterpiece, but also of stage representations; in fact, each scene can seem like a damned moving painting. In all that despair and mass of bodies, there's even poetry, and it couldn't have been otherwise considering we're talking about a work taken from the masterpiece of the poet of poets. The film, when viewed, has something Pasolinian about it, I'm referring to the semi or, in certain parts, totally integral nudity, the sin that isn't just perceived but touched, all the tortures "assigned" to the various damned souls are terrible. Some are buried head down with feet towards the fire, some are devoured, some are forced to walk forever without a leg, or with the head in hand, some are dunked in excrement, some buried to the neck under ice, some transformed into serpents, and much more. But the shocking thing is how it was all realized, I was impressed to see how they managed to make everything credible and shocking. It's a film that doesn't at all feel the weight of time passing, as the tricks and effects are simply extraordinary. The man who holds his head... carried out with a simple but very effective trick, so effective it leaves a real impression.
Not to mention the ending, the encounter with Lucifer. A giant demon, busy devouring a damned soul, a scene that has rightfully entered the history of cinema, a scene where every word is superfluous, you have to see it to understand. And after this mix of nightmare and poetry, it's time to ascend... we return to see the stars!
And to think that until recently, I didn't know about this extraordinary work of art; I retrieved it, and today, having seen it for the umpteenth time, I can confirm that "L'inferno" is one of my absolute favorite silent films, a timeless masterpiece, a milestone, an important film that testifies to how great our cinema has been. Yes, because I want to proudly shout that "L'inferno" is an all-Italian masterpiece, famous worldwide, the restored version is beautiful, and the music composed by Tangerine Dream, who I must say did an exceptional job. But the main credit goes to the artistic directors of the work who managed to reconstruct something incredibly difficult to do, dared to push beyond every boundary, challenged censorship, wanted to show us hell, wanted to amaze and shock us, and as far as I'm concerned, they succeeded brilliantly.
Extraordinary innovations also in terms of filming, as "L'inferno" presents "revolutionary" scenes for the time. The use of "superimposition" is excellent, directors also wanted to "break" the filming patterns that existed up to that period, here you can start to see camera movements certainly not typical for the era in which it was shot, the montage of multiple shots is also very interesting. In short, a revolutionary work from every point of view.
So here, I can only invite practically everyone and I emphasize everyone to watch this absolute masterpiece of cinema. Here you cannot do without it, this must be seen, do you love cinema? If so, you are obliged to watch this film. There are masterpieces in cinema that must be seen to understand what kind of power cinema holds in the collective imagination, and this is only verifiable with milestones (primarily from the past) like this film. This film has a visual power that very few films can boast, it's a film that has not been "scratched" by time at all, shocking even today... in some ways more than yesterday.
Now, it's up to you to take this journey, do it and don't worry... then you'll return to see the stars!
VinnySparrow
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