I love this movie so much

To me, this movie is perfection.

Beautiful, moving film.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties. It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

Cinema is tough, there are probably thousands of projects that were as ambitious as "Citizen Kane" or "2001: A Space Odyssey", but we'll never know because they never made it to posterity and a loss can only be measured on the basis of its previous existence. Still, the chronicle of a failed project can be as insightful and inspirational as a success story. And this where begins "L'Enfer", the revolutionary masterpiece… Henri-George Clouzot never made.Now, there is a man who nourishes an interest toward the oddest kind of movie: the lost ones. His name is Serge Bromberg, and I discovered him in the middle of the 90's when he hosted a TV cartoon show named "Cellulo", where I discovered "Flip the Frog" "La Linea" and the UPA cartoons. Now, Bromberg is the head of a firm named Lobster, specialized in the restoration of lost movies or those affected by the passing of time. And the facts are alarming: almost half the cinematic memory is lost.But Bromberg managed to conquer kilometers of lost celluloid. Not only some old Keaton and Chaplin movies were found and restored, but also some old Hitchcock movies from the silent years and the early 30's. And for having discovered such gems as "Juno and the Paycock", "Downhill" or "Mary", I needed to start the review by giving Bromberg the credit he deserves, for a work that doesn't just apply to lost movies but also lost footage. And I just loved the way a simple phone call to Clouzot's widow lead to this great documentary. I won't spoil it but how she finally agreed with the project gives its full meaning to the notion of 'elevator pitch'.And a few years after this encounter, images that have been shut from the public eye for four decades were finally shown, punctuated with interventions from the crew and the recreation of some scenes with Bérénice Béjo and Jacques Gamblin, replacing Romy Schneider and Serge Reggiani. And the enigma is less in the failure of the project than in Clouzot himself, the most classic and critically acclaimed French director whose "Quai des Orfevres", "Wages of Fear" and "Diaboliques", leveraged his reputation as a Master of Thrills, to the stature of Hitchcock.And like Hitchcok, Clouzot was a craftsman whose directing relied on rigorous preparations and technical skills, and when improvisations and experimental creativity were the norm, Clouzot was perceived as old-school cinema. So ego-tickled Clouzot wanted to beat the New Wave surfers on their field, using 60's psychedelic visuals, electronic pop-music and so many unlikely choices from a director born with the century. Hitch said it better "self-plagiarizing is style" so in this statement, lies the early indicator of a predictable defeat.Indeed, "L'Enfer" had everything to succeed: the director's reputation, distributions rights from Columbia Pictures, the stars, and the most devoted team of assistants but if a ship can navigate in the fog, it can't do without a compass. That the project would be interrupted after three weeks of filming should be a school-case for aspiring directors. Passion is crucial but you got to have a clear vision of your project. Clouzot was too busy to think of the 'effects'. It's called the 'dreamer' syndrome.Indeed, Clouzot wanted to make a movie about a jealous husband and shows from his standpoint the obsession escalating until it culminates in mirror effects or use of colors and sound editing you would expect from a 60's directing student. The found footage of the film shows many of these tricks used on the face of Schneider and Reggiani, with the colors reminding of the use of psychedelic effects in Kubrick's "2001" but Clouzot got so wrapped up in his desire to make something new, that he forgot to make something substantial.And Clouzot got so carried away by his own aesthetic ambitions that he spent countless hours of sheer experimentation, constantly delaying the production. For a scene where Reggiani watches his wife water-skiing, the blue of the lake had to turn into red to sustain the image of blood, but he couldn't reverse colors without affecting the skins and dress' colors, so he had to use make-up and dress in opposite colors to keep the effect believable, and everyone played the game, confident that this was going somewhere. Basically, the documentary chronicles the erosion of this confidence.And it seems as Clouzot's assets: money, total control, independence acted as double-edged swords, alienating every day a little more, from the assistants, to the actors. Ironically, the material of the story could have garnered half the means and be shot in less than eight weeks, ironically again; films like "Quai des Orfèvres" or "Wages of Fear" that called for a more meticulous filmmaking were perfectly handled. Yet Clouzot's obsession for expressionist symbolism clouded his abilities, call it, delusions of grandeur, in the end, the Emperor wasn't naked, there was no Emperor at all.I'm tough on Clouzot but let's take an example, Martin Scorsese, with much simpler effects, made the greatest portrayal of obsessive jealousy ever, the film was "Raging Bull", and it didn't rely on any chromatic stunt. Clouzot could have made a 'Raging Bull', but instead he chose the artistic way, giving such a rough ride to Reggiani he left the set calling him schizophrenic. By that time, the project was in agony until Clouzot's stroke put the final nail in the coffin. In 1968, Clouzot made "Woman in Chains", his final film with a more moderate (if not disconcerting) use of psychedelic effect, and a good one, but "L'Enfer" was dead.And Bromberg's documentary is, like the autopsy, one that less revived the film than the soul of Clouzot (who died in 1977), as if the story of the making was more fascinating than the story itself, and Bromberg had the best way to summarize the spirit of his work, quoting "Liberty Valance", when reality becomes legend, print the legend.

Presuming that you have not yet seen it, here is a description.Henri-Georges was a remarkable filmmaker. Though contemporary with those normally tagged new wave, he was interested not in ideas but the effectiveness of cinema. His special talent was internal perturbations of reality. After a long period of silence, he embarked on his most ambitious project: a film about a jealous man, showing his torture through practically achieved cinematic effects.He got a huge budget from Hollywood and lavished it on the film, not on sets, costumes, actors. Much was shot, and then the thing unraveled, largely because of the filmmaker's own obsessions. Production halted.Later, in 2009, this film was made about the making of the previous one, weaving the movie and the making of the movie together. The format is superficially simple: we have seated interviews with people who were involved, while relevant footage runs behind them. We see much of that footage without the original sound, though some slight, small effects have been added. Most of the footage are strange optical experiments. Some is the action in "reality." We also, separately, have two contemporary actors reading the lines from the shooting script so at least we know the story such as it is.The result is remarkable. As collaborators, one after the other, testify to the growing madness of Clouzot, or apparent madness. Or perhaps genius. It is effective as a documentary, perhaps unique in its form. It merges fiction and non-fiction, story on story, folded so that it matters. The main actor walks off, the filmmaker has a heart attack, the lake on which filming occurs literally disappears. Trains come. Anxieties mount as loves and the obsession to create clash. We wonder about projects started but unseen from Welles, Hopper, Kurosawa. Like unimagined dreams we might reach, they perhaps have more power without us encountering them. Frankly, I never heard of this failed project before. I am grateful to have encountered it now, in this way.Unfortunately, you may find the optical effects strange, dated. They all are "real" in the sense of being generated according to physical laws and properties. These days, we normally denote the unreal by effects done virtually and supposedly unconstrained by reality. So the shock is reverse: the film we are examining (in black and white) is the fiction, while the madness within that film (in color) is real."You have to see the madness through," is the last line of this. Clouzot could not. Let's hope you, dear reader, do.Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

There are several valid reasons for wanting to see this film, not least the unshown footage of Romy Schneider who had the lead role opposite Serge Reggiani, add to that a film written and directed - in so far as it went - by Henri-George Clouzot, reminiscences of the shoot by the likes of Catherine Allegret and assorted technicians, the roping in of Jacques Gamblin to flesh out (via reading) some of Reggiani's scenes and what's not to like. The film was doomed from the start. Clouzot was a changed person and thought nothing of waking the crew at 3 a.m. to discuss an idea. Reggiani finally ankled on the grounds that enough is enough and was replaced by Jean-Louis Trintignant who never got on set because Clouzot suffered a heart attack and the film was closed down. It remains fascinating for any French film buff, especially when you throw into the mix the fact that Clouzot's widow, Ines, sold the script to Chabrol who went ahead and shot it. Old School versus New Wave. It's no contest and this fragment eclipses every movie that Godard ever shot.

A most interesting film surrounding the making of Clouzot's unfinished, Inferno. Abandoned in 1964 ostensibly due to the director's heart attack, a substantial amount of filming remains and much use has been made of the original footage. Intended as a film about a husband's obsessive jealousy over his wife's apparent philandering, it seems Clouzot became himself obsessed. The b/w footage appears to have some promise but is without soundtrack so hard to judge, but no the real interest here is the experimental reels. Determined to make a film like no other, Clouzot recruited any number of technicians and artists to help create devices to give him surreal or psychedelic affects. Along the way the director has clearly fallen for the lovely Romy Schneider who for instance spent four days with a camera close up on her lips whilst exhaling cigarette smoke and wearing various colours of lipstick, including blue. Valuable as an insight into the attempted making of Inferno but a little frustrating in that it asks more questions than it answers, like the true mental state of the director and why nobody else might have carried on. It is possible that a lot was left out here because Clouzot's widow was to have last say on the film but it would be nice to know and maybe someone else one day will have another go, there seems enough footage.