Other than the title suggests, the famous songs of Dante do not play any direct role in the film. Dantesque themes such as the opposition of good and evil, the love for elusive idols, the craving for power and death are incorporated only indirectly.A divina comedia can be regarded as a parable about western society. The location is a rural institution where a number of people live who imagine themselves to be well-known historical figures. There are for instance biblical figures such as Adam and Eve, Jesus, Lazarus, Martha and Maria, but also literary greats such as Raskolnikov or an anonymous prophet.In this film De Oliveira uses different classical disciplines of the arts. The texts refer emphatically to famous literary works such as the Bible, Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov by Tolstoy and the oeuvre of Nietzsche. The form of the film is close to theatre, while music also plays an important role. Philippe Vecchi (Libération) described the film as constructed like a ballet ‘tête-à-tête’ with excessive lighting and as a series of dialogue fragmentsbetween theatre and cinema. So it is not filmed theatre, but an attempt to use theatrical means to innovate and enrichen the language of film.Dimitri Eipides, director of the festival for new cinema in Montreal wrote that the film is made ‘with ease and a deep understanding of film language in its purest, most elemental form’. De Oliveira demands in this film even more of the viewer than usual — A divina comedia far from being a simple film — but he does give the viewer an amazing gift of beauty and wisdom in return.
