Product Details

• Actors: Emmanuelle Béart, François Cluzet, Nathalie Cardone, André Wilms, Marc Lavoine
• Format: Color, DVD, Letterboxed, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: French (Dolby Digital 2.0)
• Subtitles: English
• Region: All Regions
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Fox Lorber
• DVD Release Date: June 10, 1998
• Run Time: 100 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 1572522739
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #123,177 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "L'Enfer" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Paul (François Cluzet) and Nelly (Emmanuelle Béart) have what seems to be a storybook marriage. They love each other madly and have worked together to turn their little lakeside inn into a gorgeous resort getaway while raising an adorable son. But there's a problem: Paul is convinced Nelly is having an affair and his jealousy spins to insane proportions. Hallucinations and nightmares twist his dementia until he imagines her sleeping with every man in sight, and his obsessive spying turns Nelly's life into a living hell. Claude Chabrol (director of La Cérémonie, known as the Gallic Hitchcock for his cool thrillers of obsessive love and homicidal passion, created his film from an original unfilmed screenplay by Henri-George Clouzot (Les Diaboliques). He injects Clouzot's dark, misanthropic tale with a soupçon of Hitchcock's voyeuristic obsession, but ultimately makes the film his own with unexpected sympathy for Paul, whose pathological jealousy spins out of control in a chilling conclusion that leaves the viewers uncomfortably nestled in his madness. The film faced charges of misogyny upon release largely because Chabrol remained steadfast in his portrayal of Paul not as a monster but a victim of madness (somewhat at the expense of Nelly, an angelic sexpot whose loyalty and love is almost sacrificial), but ultimately that's what gives L'Enfer its unsettling power. --Sean Axmaker

From The New Yorker

Claude Chabrol has returned to the sunny provincial horrors of "Le Boucher." Paul (François Cluzet) is a successful hotelier, who marries Nelly (Emmanuelle Béart) and can't quite believe that she is faithful to him. Chabrol hauls us slowly through the stages of Paul's mad jealousy, from mild suspicion to a final, untethered hysteria. The weak link in the picture is Cluzet, who seems feeble and plaintive; you wouldn't blame Béart (whose beauty really is maddening) if she did start playing around. Chabrol adapted the story from an old screenplay by Henri-Georges Clouzot (the director of "Diabolique''), and added his own brand of casual foreboding. Who else could find such menace in the sound of jets crossing a peaceful summer sky? In French. -Anthony Lane
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Film is fine; dvd transfer horrid., November 6, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: L'Enfer (DVD)

I bought and had to return this DVD twice because it is a badly flawed transfer. Considerably worse than the VHS. Only filler was a trailer which was unwatchable because the video and audio broke up.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A choice piece of Cinematic presentation, March 19, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: L'Enfer [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This is a wonderful piece of work. It makes you tingle they way in which jealosy is portrayed as a person living in fear, anger and desperation. The iterview and commentary from the the director was also profound.

One of the best films I've ever seen.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A mans own personal hell., February 13, 2000

By 

John Cobb (Austin, TX) - See all my reviews

This review is from: L'Enfer (DVD)

Reality, or fantasy is the immediate question posed in Claude Chabrol's L'Enfer. The man who carries the mantel the"French Hitchcock" Chabrol delivers a taut, bare to the bones thriller.

When husband Paul (Francois Cluzet) begins to believe his beautiful, flirtatious wife Nelly (Emmanuelle Beart) is fooling around, his psychological demise is quick, and intense.

Chabrol brings us the story primarily from Paul's point of view, leaving many of the ambiguities, as well as the uncertainties of this tale to our own imagination.

From a script of Henri-Georges Clouzot (Diabolique, Wages of Fear) written in 1964, Chabrol updates the original (Clouzot never finished his version due to failing health, he died in 1977) giving it the contemporary setting and dialogue, but maintaining a style of presentation consistent with the thrillers of that era.

I love this early exchange: Nelly: "You're following me, Paul." Paul: "Why would I, is there any reason?" Nelly: "No, but if you keep it up, there will be."

Emmanuelle Beart shows why she is one of the world's great stars. American audiences have yet to have the best of Beart, who's English speaking debut (Mission:Impossible) seemed uneven, almost clumsy. But here she delivers on all cylinders: a beautiful seductress. Calculating? Unfaithful? We'll see.

Highly recommended.