Bosnian Danis Tanovic (No Man’s Land) directs a formidable array of French talent in this tale of three Parisian sisters whose lives have been determined by the devastating antagonism between their parents.
Screened as part of NZIFF 2006
L'Enfer 2005
Hell
Bosnian Danis Tanovic (No Man’s Land) directs a formidable array of French talent in this tale of three Parisian sisters whose lives have been determined in different ways by the devastating antagonism between their parents. Working from a script created for the late Krzysztof Kieslowski by his Red, White, Blue collaborator Krzysztof Piesiewicz, Tanovic has created an elegantly burnished baroque drama of a family trapped in unresolved trauma.
“An ingenious, gripping work inspired by Euripides’s Medea, mixing sexiness and unhappiness into something explosively unstable… delivered to the audience with such brio, such attack – and such uniformly excellent acting. There is such an embarrassment of riches that Tanovic can afford almost to throw away a cameo from no less a figure than Jean Rochefort… The hell [l’enfer] in this movie consists of being condemned to repeat past mistakes, to re-enact past cruelties, in an unending round… This film is far from an easy watch, but brilliantly presented and played – and a worthy addition to the Kieslowski canon.” — Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian