INFERNO: Film Review through a Postmodern lens

Romance too cheesy and whodunnits too grim, and not your idea of a good movie-time? You enjoy waiting with bated breath on a chase that keeps you helplessly fixated on the screen? 
Well. Let's talk about Inferno then.

2.5★ out of 5
YEAR OF RELEASE 2016
GENRE Mystery/Adventure
DIRECTED BY Ron Howard
STARS Tom Hanks, Felicity Jones, Sidse Knudsen, Irrfan Khan

Both in terms of plot and screenplay, Inferno comes off as a typical postmodern work. Undecidability, one of the key factors that splits the text, making it disorderly, can be seen at play in the movie– wouldn’t it have made more sense had Zobrist released the pathogen ASAP, or at least had left the potent virus with one of his allies for easy access and release? But since the movie would be over in 10 minutes if he’d done that, he instead illogically plots out a complicated puzzle for his lover where she is required to follow the breadcrumbs to determine the whereabouts of the deadly strain which turns out to be lodged in a different country altogether! He and his girlfriend used to play treasure hunts– understandable, but his main objective of having synthesized the virus and doing himself in for it was to save the world—as he claimed—or to put his lover on an almost unachievable chase?!

The Postmodern approach challenges the attitude that reason and rationale underpin all pursuits of life, clearly evident in the movie based on the novel by Dan Brown with the same name, for all reason is suspended when Zobrist decides that the way to save life and humanity is to kill it! In his understanding, Zobrist doesn’t seem to have any consideration for human life or considers it least essential to the survival of lifeforms on earth, representing a very postmodern outlook that assumes there is nothing necessarily essential about human beings– that humans are but a small part of the much larger scheme of things.

The movie sets off by highlighting overpopulation as a cause of our impending doom, making the viewers actually worry about the possibility of such an event, and then the whole issue is put on the back burner when the race to save or destroy the world from a deadly virus takes the centre stage. The objective of the movie and its major concern, therefore, is evidently blurred, which is a characteristic feature of postmodernism that is marked by fragmentation with scattered origins and ends, without any assurance of a centre or destination.

Talking of how the movie unfolds, it may not have enough elements to be labelled a “meta-narrative”, but certainly exemplifies intertextuality, with the whole puzzle to ascertain the whereabouts of the virus being based on Dante’s Inferno and Botticelli’s Map of Hell. Narrative ambiguity can be seen bewildering the viewers, at least briefly, making them reflect and trace all they had watched to make complete sense of the plot, though certain loopholes can also be identified through diligent reflection. Postmodernism also produces multiplicity and a pluralistic vision of the world, much like Zobrist’s view in the movie, that can be seen to be at polar opposites with Professor Langdon’s and WHO’s suits who race against Zobrist’s followers to save the world by getting to the virus and neutralizing it before the damage was done, while the dead scientist believed the way to stop further damage was by extinguishing all mankind!

Towards the end, the struggle for the containment unit having the viral culture becomes almost laughable, for it is then that the development of the storyline assumes a scuffle overworked in many other Hollywood chase-after movies. Generally speaking, it is an engaging watch, at least for those who enjoy twisted plots.