L' Enfer

"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..."

"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..."

"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..."

"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..."

"Despite the efforts of a fine cast, the finished film feels overly determined and insufficiently mysterious..."