Dan Brown´s Inferno

 

Credit: Exotic Indian Art (?)

The first time I watched "Inferno", I didn´t like it. At all. The whole thing felt extremely unrealistic (even for a Dan Brown story). Or like an extended European-Turkish travel guide for American tourists with fake cultural sensibilities. I considered it the worst of the three Dan Brown-related films. I don´t remember the exact year I saw the movie, but I do have a guess.

It must have been before the COVID pandemic...

Today? Well, when I re-watched "Inferno" earlier tonight, it struck me as a documentary. At least more or less! Above all, the film feels post-COVID rather than 2016 (the actual release date). 

The plot revolves around a group of eco-terrorists who have developed a pathogen which can kill half of Earth´s population. Naturally, the activists assume they are working for the greater good of the species or something to that effect. Their leader is a billionaire, a certain Zobrist, with all kinds of odd ideas. The WHO are the good guys (!) but it´s interesting that they are depicted almost as an intelligence agency. Think CIA or FBI. Other actors are looking for the bio-weapon, too. In one plot twist, a global security firm working on behalf of the genocidal Zobrist realize they´ve been conned and switch sides at the last possible moment.

It´s interesting to note that the terrorists are depicted as young, idealist and extremely well-educated. They are fanatics, but not obviously brain-washed. Zobrist is excentric but also rich and good-looking. It´s difficult not to think of, say, Elon Musk or Peter Thiel. But while Musk and Thiel are very much part of the establishment (and rather ugly), Zobrist doesn´t work for some secret Illuminati cabal. He seems to be a genuinely independent rebel. Come to think of it, all films based on Dan Brown´s novels are pro-establishment. (If this also true of the novels, I don´t know.) "The Da Vinci Code" defends sinister secret societies, "Angels and Demons" is implicitly pro-Vatican, while "Inferno" is about brave globalist agents trying to stop some kind of confused Woke utopians. 

If they had wanted to make "Inferno" even more realistic, the terrorists would have (perhaps unwittingly) worked for some next-level government black-op, while Zobrist would have been a powerful capitalist tycoon with insane takes seen as quite respectable among his peers...

But surely I´m just being paranoid, right? Right.