Die Hölle

Chabrol will always be Chabrol - sometimes less, rarely if ever more (maybe in La Femme Infidele...). But he's Chabrol, God bless him: love, lakes, bourgeoisie, jealousy, sex, meals, bonhomie, kids who appear and disappear, murderous thoughts, weird surrealism right before the end. You can set your watch by him. Emmanuel Beart is unbelievably sexy. And the film is a perfect illustration of some (dimly understood by me) Lacanian theories: sexual intercourse's dream of fusion is impossible, for example. Having possessed the ideal object, Cluzet knows that, in fact, one possesses nothing. Everything that makes Beart alluring also makes her dangerous in that she freely chooses...whatever she freely chooses. Freely choosing fidelity means that any moment you can freely choose infidelity. So a guy just can't win. That's why DeCordova in Bunuel's El (adroitly cited by another one of the readers here) pulls out the needle and thread. This film has none of the humor and acuity of Bunuel's neglected masterpiece. But it's Chabrol, and he's doing his thing. That ain't nothing...As a study of a man's descent from jealousy into madness, however, the film is powerful and well made but not super subtle.

Among all the directors labelled "nouvelle vague",Claude Chabrol was arguably the one who had more affinities with the precedent generation so despised by a lot of his sixties colleagues.And the generation before Chabrol included the genius Henri-George Clouzot.So,to film "les diaboliques"'s director lost screenplay,Chabrol was ideal.Both he and Clouzot mix detective stories,social satire and psychological studies. "L'enfer" might be one of Chabrol's finest achievements.François Cluzet,in a lifetime performance,portrays a jealous man-recalling Bunuel's hero in "El'(1952)-,but his jealousy verges on madness.Little by little,with small touches,we see this maleficent obsession grow like a cancer,destroying everything,his wife's sincere love(well played by Emmanuelle Béart),his personality,his job.And see how Chabrol masters space.At the beginning,the action takes place in a wonderful lake setting.Then we do not get out of the hotel owned by Cluzet,with its dangerous corridors .And in the final sequences ,the director confines his two characters to a doctor office or their bedroom. Cluzet's madness and its inexorable progression are masterfully shown too.First,only some gestures,some voice inflexions.Then he begins to follow her everywhere .Then come the hallucinations:the amateur movie projected onto a small screen in the restaurant is the film's apex and should be part of a Chabrol anthology.Interior voices obsess the unfortunate hero,and every time he looks himself in a mirror,he sees an irrational world,this world he lives in,this world he believes in.No longer able to communicate with the normal one,he forces the other ones (his wife being first in line)to enter his.And we are not sure,at the end of the movie,that Béart is not on the other side of the mirror too.

Two private jokes: In the first sequence,Béart puts her hair in braids,and she resembles Vera Clouzot in "les diaboliques".When the young couple comes back to the restaurant after the wedding,the little accordion tune "les couleurs du temps" that you hear was written by Guy Béart,Emmanuelle's father a long time ago.

NB.Clouzot's version,which he began to film circa 1963,featured Romy Schneider and Serge Reggiani.(although the film was never completed,it has a page on IMDb)

Surprisingly good, in fact rather splendid late Chabrol. We start with a young couple full of love and optimism as they bounce about running their hotel, bringing up baby and making eyes at each other. The wife seems to naturally do this semi flirting semi friendly stuff with everyone and gradually her husband begins to become jealous. We are never 100% certain but what at first seems six of one and half a dozen of the other descends into the 'hell' of the title as the green eyed monster truly comes to fruition. Initially delightful, this movie gets as dark as it possibly could and we are gripped, even perhaps more than with a Hitchcock as the terrible finale awaits.

Quite interesting film on obsession (an obsession of jealousy, in the specific case) and on the observation that hell is man-made. I liked the very solar performance of Emmanuelle Béart, while I expected something more from François Cluzet.

In order to frame the film properly, however, one must consider that the original script is from 1964 and that Chabrol went to a certain length not to let us lose sight of this fact: the film is shot in a very 60's technicolor; one of the hotel guests uses a camera rather than a video-camera, and the scene he shoots have an unmistakably 60's flavor; the water-ski scene (the key moment of the whole film) has a 60's pace and framing,... We are obviously supposed to read the film in a 1960's perspective. And, considering the political climate in France in the 60's, and the nature of Paul Prieur occupation (he is a hotel owner, therefore a businessman), I find it impossible not to read this film as a statement of the impossibility of the bourgeois ideal of happiness.

The bourgeois values make people equipped to strive for more, but don't give them the emotional tools to deal with their life once they are "arrived." The feeling that there must be something more, and that this can't be the perfection of life is too easily translated in the feeling that there *is* something wrong (a cheating wife: the greatest shame for the latin male), and in the creation of a personal hell.

It is very significant, I think, that the film was released at the dawn of the "new economy" which, even more that the traditional bourgeois values, leads people to a life of continuous movement, and makes them emotionally unprepared to deal with being finally arrived.

The owner of the Hotel Du Lac, Paul Prieur (François Cluzet), gets married with the beautiful and sexy Nelly (Emmanuelle Béart) and they have a boy. Nelly loves Paul and is pleasant with guests, and the insecure Paul feels that she is a woman out of his league.

When Nelly spends some time with the handsome guest Martineau (Marc Lavoine), Paul follows her and becomes paranoid and delusional believing that she is unfaithful to him. His increasing obsession turns into madness that ends in an announced tragedy.

"L'Enfer", a.k.a. "Hell" (1994), is a dramatic tale of insecurity, paranoia and madness by Claude Chabrol, with the story of a man that lives in hell with his jealousy and brings this hell to the life of his wife. Last time that I saw this film was on 23 April 2000 and the story is timeless and has not aged. The tragic conclusion is predictable and my only remark is the attitude of Doctor Arnoux, who should have foreseen that the safety of Nelly was in danger with the insane Paul. Emmanuelle Béart is wonderfully cast to justify the obsession of Paul. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Ciúme - O Inferno do Amor Possessivo" ("Jealousy - The Hell of the Possessive Love")

Note: On 04 February 2018, I saw this film again.

Note: On 07 January 2025, I saw this film again.