Redwarmin This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

Frances Chung Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Rosie Searle It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Ginger Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

johnnyboyz After the film about the trapped soldiers comes the film about the collection of women trapped in marital situations, love affairs and general relationships with other men; two pieces depicting routine scenarios wherein one cannot merely 'up' and walk away in spite of the simplicity of the set up. The troops in director Denis Tanovic's "No Man's Land" were of course bound by a terrifying situation involving an anti-personnel mine and their inability to merely leave it alone whilst existing perched on the frontline of a war anyway - the women in his 2005 French language drama "Hell" is a detailing of a less than terrifying proposition on paper, although one that is just as equally engrossing, as a group of people this time move freely about their surroundings whilst dealing with an array of altercations born out of time spent with the male gender.The film follows three sisters and their tremulous paths in life born out of the presence of men. One sister of whom appears frightened of instigating a relationship; one of whom is stuck in one that is falling apart and the other of whom desires greatly to start one with somebody who's not necessarily interested. The women, respectively, are Céline (Viard); Sophie (Béart) and Anne (Gillian), three siblings occupying a Paris playing host to love-'n'-all-that, only not in the way someone unfamiliar to the city nor film making as a whole would portray such a thing in such a place. There is romance in the film, but nothing necessarily romantic about the piece, nor what people go through as a congealed whole – there are affairs and there is love, but it is tremulous and often unpleasant for those sharing in it.Céline is a nice, polite young woman; a woman whose trauma during infanthood saw both her and her mother encounter their father/husband at his workplace at precisely the wrong time when entering into his office to catch him in the presence of a naked male infant. You might say the event has appeared to have gone on and moulded where Céline stands in terms of the opposite gender - a patient, albeit often scatty woman, she spends time with her wheelchair bound mother reciting some of the more morbid world records contained within a particular book sponsored by a particular alcoholic beverage. Céline has an admirer, a man from the past who's apparent in her life out of one, big misunderstanding from the offset. Céline is wary, since the events surrounding how she knows him are traumatic enough to leave an imprint without necessarily being enough to send her totally mad. Sexuality and sexual connotations are embroiled in the connection - when she removes her clothes for him on account of entrusting him to be reading from the same page as she is in terms of mutual attraction, history repeats itself in the most unfortunate, although rather blackly amusing, way possible. In spite of what precedes it, the gentleman is decent: someone whose sensitivity is apparent out of the fact the film establishes him to enjoy poetry and of whom seems to walk around with an analogue watch which can 'beep'.Emmanuelle Béart's character wakes up in the morning, but not beside her husband – he's already up and too busy out in the hallway taking on the phone to another young woman, someone whose picture dons the walls of his photographic studio where he works. Desire and sexuality have often followed Béart around in the roles that she's previously undertaken, with the likes of Manon des Sources; Histoire de Marie et Julien and Nathalie... coming to mind as films depicting the actress central to relationships that range from unrequited to just plain odd and very much feature another man. Here, we have fun watching her as someone who's obviously become somewhat unappealing to a man. Where Sophie is the victim in one strand driven by an extra marital affair, Anne is busy instigating one of her own with an older man – a lecturing professor whose car of choice is an old DS19 in a story about befriending an elder suitor that runs parallel with her younger sister Célines' courting of a younger man.If the film strikes us, then it's down to its maturity in dealing with what it depicts. The film is about women and about women and their interactions with the gentlemen they encounter that carry romantic intentions, but there is no desire to depict neither them nor the events in their life as off the wall or 'wacky'. There is an innocence to proceedings, something undercut by what is probably the most interesting of the three tales in Béart's strand – a story depicting fall out; suspicion and great anger. These are women we sense might actually exist and women whose actions have the sorts of consequences which impact upon them enough for us to sense they feel it – a lesser film may have had them pick themselves up; dust themselves down and move onto the next unrealistic, socially clumsily romantic set piece for our meager amusement. Tanovic weaves in a narrative about family feuding; memory and repent with Céline's chapter, something which actually works as a decent bookender enabling these stories to congregate together where previously there was distrust and alienation. If his aforementioned 2001 effort No Man's Land wove into the central content this exasperated story of these French U.N. soldiers plodding their way to the soldiers in need of assistance, then this burning background narrative involving a misplaced child and the core character's father from decades ago fills in for the blue helmeted squad of international support chugging across the barren landscape of war torn Yugoslavia. Whatever you take away from it, and there is content here to get excited about, the film as a congealed piece is strong and creditable.

punyaketu After seeing this great film on the big screen I had to think of the composer Salieri as shown in the film "Amadeus" (based on Peter Shaffer's play). There he says about the perfection of Mozart's music that it would neither be possible to take one note away nor to add one. The same applies for me to "L'enfer"/"Hell". From start to finish every detail is absolutely spot on. There was no question for me if I should buy the DVD when it came out or not. It has a special place in my collection and I show/see it only with friends who really can appreciate a good and meaningful film with depth to it.When looking at the information on this website about the writers of the film I can see why often giving credits to the writing can be problematic. As the DVD has as an extra background information and clips about the making of L'enfer I seem to remember from it that the fantastic director had a lot of input into it. At least one of the main actresses commented that he actually recreated the script and made it his own. Though he might not have done this in written form his handwriting is all over the end-product. This, and also in many other ways as you can find out when you watch the DVD extras yourself, makes it such a beautiful "round" piece of art.Art is done by artists, and therefore great art is created by great artists. This director belongs definitely to the latter. He didn't even attempt to make it a "Kieszlowski film". Much better, he made it absolutely his own. Kieszlowski would have been proud of it (what, on the other hand, I unfortunately can't say at all about the "prequel" Heaven by my fellow country-man Tom Tykwer). For me it is therefore also the best memorial for that great and important Polish director who died so prematurely.

Harry T. Yung Apologies for the summary line, which I simply cannot resist. The first two of the late, legendary director Kieslowski's legacy of the trilogy which, he presumably was going to make himself, were acquired by two highly respected directors. Tom Tykwer (Lola Rennt) made "Heaven" a few years ago and Danis Tanovic (No Man's Land) made "Hell" (L'Enfer) last year.One thing immediately noticeable about L'Enfer is style. Director Tanovic seems very fond of using vertical shots (reminding me strangely the stabbing scene in "Psycho" – not the shower scene, of course). It was a while ago when I watched "No Man's Land" but I don't recall similar shots. This may be viewed as director Tanovic's versatility in employing the camera, as in the 360 degree shot that accentuate the protagonist's emotion. Also used quite extensively is silhouette, to various degrees, showing a dark object against light in the background. Coincidence or not, director Tykwer also used silhouette in "Heaven", but the impact of that scene is so dumbfounding that by comparison, silhouette scenes in L'Enfer are only pale shadows.While Heaven has flashes of controversial and provocative ideas as well as rich symbolism throughout, Hell stays on traditional, sometime even melodramatic ground, leading us through a web of tragic human traits – doubt, infidelity, selfishness, to mention just a few. The use of Medea, the tragedy of tragedies in Greek mythology, as the subject of a college project is not incidental. The elements of misunderstanding, deceit, vengeance and unforgiving stubbornness underpin the tragedy surrounding the three sisters haunted by a nightmarish childhood experience.Sophie, tormented by her gnawing resentment of an unfaithful husband, is played by Emmanuelle Beart who will be remembered by those who have seen Ozon's "8 women" as the subtly sexy maid Louise. Attractive and unsophisticated Anne (Marie Gillian) is hopelessly attached to her professor who has a daughter about her own age. Subdued Celine (Karin Viard) is left with the task of providing occasional company to their partially incapacitated mother, wheel-chair bound and unable to talk (but can write). Appearance of what appears to be an unlikely, handsome suitor turns up dark hidden secrets that was the common root of the tragic heritage of the sisters. More I'll not reveal.Hell is well crafted, beautifully shot, capably acted and provides keen insights that will be reflected on. And yet, it just lacks that innovative spirit that puts Heaven one notch above it.

Chris Knipp Danis Tanovic's L'Enfer begins with opening titles and a pre-title vignette so glossy, elaborate, and symbol-laden they almost wear you out before the movie's even started. The Times's Holden called this the "most artistically high-reaching film" of the March 2006 Lincoln Center French Series and he's absolutely right; but though Tanovic said in the Q&A after the screening that his movies are highly planned and shot in single takes to spare the company, it was impossible to see where the moral intensity was in his boisterous on-stage Slavic version of an "aw shucks" attitude. Might there have been something missing, despite the impressive display of seeming importance and the high production values? Hell is based on a 55-page treatment by long-time Kieslowski screenwriter/collaborator Piesiewiesz, and is the second part of a projected Heaven-Hell-Purgatory trilogy. But it's hard to say whether this movie is a Kieslowski homage, an effort at continuation, or simply a glossy but empty knockoff. The question that now comes to mind is, if this is a good imitation of Kieslowski, was Kieslowski himself this artificial and unfelt? Surely at least some of the time he most emphatically was not. Does an artist like the Polish master Kieslowski need a homage? But apart from that, shouldn't a real homage go in more of a new direction, transcending the master's tradition in a new and interesting way? There's too much going on here, and there's something lacking at the core, but there's also too much good stuff to dismiss. Hell has a look as lush as any Kieslowski film, with filters, handsome and sometimes color-coded interiors, impressive locations – a perfectly grand château, a classic sculpted Sorbonne lecture hall, a dark, elegant photographer's house and his equally "wow"-inspiring studio – and, last but not least, a brace of beautiful French movie actresses: Emmanuelle Béart, Caroline Bouquet, Karin Viard, Marie Gillain. (Tanovic, whose No Man's Land won him praise and purged his obsession with the war experiences he grew up with in Bosnia, also made Hell as a homage to French film-making. Perhaps more specifically to Kieslowski's film-making in France.) There's also Kieslowski's preoccupation with destiny, chance, and mysterious interconnections between people and events. There's so much going on here, and there's often the feel of Kieslwoski in superficial but entrancing ways, but still it's hard to feel for any of the people, even when they're laying on the emotion with a trowel. This is perhaps because there's too much flitting back and forth between characters, without getting close enough to any of them, despite a sense of high melodrama surrounding each of them. Béart, Viard and Marie Gillain represent three sisters who all live in Paris but have lost touch with each other. Sophie (Béart) has two kids and a lean, cool, and unfaithful photographer husband (Jacques Gamblin) whose adultery she humiliates herself by spying on. They subsequently separate, but apart from a couple of dramatic confrontations, we don't get the details. Cécile (Viard) is sterile but sweet and takes the train to the country each weekend to care for the sisters' mute, wheel-chaired mother (Carole Bouquet). When she's in Paris, she's occasionally pursued by a young man named Sebastian (Guillaume Canet) who may be in love with her. The younger sister, Anne (Gillain) is more out and about, but she's got a bad problem of her own. A Sorbonne student, she's madly in love with a prof named Frédéric (Jacques Perrin, who is also the judge in Le Petit lieutenant), a man old enough to be her father who, in one of the film's several surprises, turns out to be the father of Anne's "only friend." But the family members know nothing of the relationship and unwittingly urge Anne to "fight" to win their own husband and father. Frédéric loved Anne once at the Acropolis, but now he's trying to get rid of her because he loves his wife and daughter. Sébastian has the key to something that may explain all three sisters' neurotic and lonely lives. It may also have something to do with the story of Medea, which Anne recites in a Sorbonne exam room with Cliff Notes simplicity. That's all I can tell you, not because I don't want to spoil things but because that's all I know. If it weren't for the later scene in which Céline confronts Sébastian we wouldn't know why we're watching this movie. We wouldn't even know these were three sisters. This kind of structure works well enough in a mystery story where there's a specific mystery set up at the beginning, but here, there are just random events, and a lot of emoting and pretty scenery and portentous imagery. Style overwhelms substance in L'Enfer, even though its substance, in the form of elaborate plotting, is pretty elaborate too. When it's all over and the mute mother writes her unintentionally comic final mot echoing Edith Piaf, "Je ne regretted rien" (I regret nothing), things really still aren't fully explained, but we, and Tanovic, have run out of energy. The fact that Tanovic can mount a production like this suggests that, if he finds something to say, he will have impressive means to say it. Meanwhile, these actors and images were too much fun to watch to dismiss the movie, but the emptiness at the center precludes giving it the superlative rating it aspires to.(Shown during the Rendez-Vous with French Cinema in March 2006 at Lincoln Center, New York, L'Enfer opened to very poor reviews but some spectator enthusiasm in Paris November 30, 2005.)