Variety
For a movie with such a fiery title, "Hell" is a decidedly cold, protracted work marked by solid, but passionless performances and a preference for polished, fashion-magazine imagery...
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L' Enfer
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
2005Rating: M, contains nudityFrance, Italy, Belgium, JapanIn French with English subtitles
Drama
- Director:
- Danis Tanovic ('No Man's Land')
- Writer:
- Krzysztof Piesiewicz
- Cast:
- Emmanuelle BéartKarin ViardMarie GillainCarole BouquetGuillaume CanetJacques Gamblin
L' Enfer / Reviews
Total Film
There are plenty of visual flourishes in the baroque storytelling, but the film lacks both the emotional intensity and mysteriousness of Kieslowski's best work...
Full reviewNew Zealand Herald
An old-fashioned film in the best sense of that phrase, this solid family melodrama is so carefully and deliberately constructed as to feel slightly contrived, but it retains an elemental tragic power, thanks to a quartet of wonderful performances from a roll-call of great modern French stars...
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Hollywood Reporter
Danis Tanovic's Oscar-winning "No Man's Land" demonstrated a fondness for allegory and his second feature, "L'Enfer" ("Hell"), draws upon Greek mythology, Euripides' "Medea" and the interplay of destiny and coincidence. But for all its literary references, the thing certainly looks like a shallow though slick French melodrama...
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BBC
Despite the efforts of a fine cast, the finished film feels overly determined and insufficiently mysterious...
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