Nielsen's Inferno

            The movie What Dreams May Come is a visually stunning journey through the afterlife, and is analogous to Dante's Inferno in so many ways. Chris Nielsen is directly relatable to Dante in this movie. When Dante starts his journey in the Dark Forest, his objective is to go through all of hell to reach purgatory, and soon heaven to rejoice with the love of his life, Beatrice. After Chris Nielsen's death, he goes to heaven, and his objective is to see and speak with his wife who is still alive. They can communicate through her paintings and what Chris sees in heaven because they are true soul mates, but once she gives up in life and commits suicide, she goes to hell, as suicide was a sin, and Chris can no longer communicate or see her again. His mission becomes going through hell, like Dante, to find her again. Dante takes the long journey through hell, which is a risk in itself, because his desire is that strong, he is willing to risk his life and soul. This is exactly the position Chris is in, and why. He is in heaven for eternity if he chooses for his afterlife, but when he finds out Annie is in hell for suicide, he is willing to risk his life and become stuck in hell like she, all for her, and to be with her once again. The themes are very similar in both of these stories, consisting of a life risking journey through hell to the end where, if everything turns out the way they want, ends with the rejoicing of their love and thus their eternal happiness. Another obvious similarity is having the 'guide' character. In Dante's Inferno, Virgil is the guide for Dante; the one who shows the right way, the one who knows all or more of where they are and why, and who is basically the mentor of the main character for the journey. In What Dreams May Come, Chris has a few guides. When he is in heaven, his main guide is Albert Lewis, who he finds out is really his son Ian, in Albert Lewis' form because he knew his dad looked up to him, as Ian looks up to his dad (Chris). A secondary guide, who is more of a temporary mentor, is the woman Leona, in the part of heaven where souls are reborn to life. Both Albert Lewis and Leona are 'guides' for Chris in heaven, which is different to Dante's Inferno because Dante only goes through hell, and his one guide is Virgil. But the third guide Chris has when he is in hell, who is analogous to Virgil, is The Tracker. Chris learns a lot about the philosophy of afterlife and what everything is around him, how it is what it is, and why in heaven and hell from these three guides, as Dante learns a lot about the same aspects of hell from Virgil.

  

            The sins and punishments are abundant in Dante's Inferno whereas What Dreams May Come doesn't show/explain nearly as many, but a few parts of hell and the sins and punishments of them were the same as in Dante's hell. The biggest component that was similar by sin, was the sin of suicide. People who have committed suicide go to a specific layer of hell in Dante's Inferno (Canto XIII). Their punishment is becoming a tree where the bark, really one's skin, is peeled off by Harpies for eternity. In What Dreams May Come, Chris' wife Annie commits suicide and goes to hell because suicide is a sin from its disruption of the natural order of death. Annie goes to a layer of hell where there are people who have disrespected themselves or others, so people and life have disrespected them back of their wrong doings. The punishment for Annie and every other sinner is to be buried to the head in dirt that they can never escape from, where only their head can move and nothing else. The punishment in Canto XIII and this movie are similar because they both involve the sinner being restricted of movement, and thus their freedom and sanity.  The other big similarity is based off the Cocytus river scene in Dante's Inferno. In the ninth circle of hell, Dante and Virgil travel through the river Cocytus, in which they are on a boat where the dead sinners rise out of the water and try to grab them on the boat. This very same scene happens in What Dreams May Come, where Chris and The Tracker are on the red-sailed boat that Annie was on when they met in life, and the dead are trying to grab him and The Tracker from the river on their boat. There are many elements that are important to What Dreams May Come, such as the element of color, but when comparing these two stories through elements, there are more, different similarities. Allegorically, certain visuals and descriptions, sins and punishments, and analogous characters are similar, but both Dante's Inferno and What Dreams May Come have a lot to offer to art, similar or not.