"L'enfer" of Chabrol had to compete with (the expectations related to) the (in)famous never finished project by Henri Georges Clouzot from 1964. Inevitably it falls short of this expectations. A documentary about the making of the 1964 film from 2010 casted doubt if the expectations where wholy justified, but in the end this is irrelevant. It is hard to compete to a film that was never finished or was lost.
Chabrol made a film that is clearly different from the one Clouzot was having in mind. No psychedelic effects in 1994, but instead of this a timeline that is a bit puzzeling at the beginning. The male character is moving rather rapidly from a bit suspicious about his wife fidelity to clearly insane. It takes a while befor you realise that the ratio of filmtime to real time is slowing down. In the beginning of the movie a quarter of filmtime represents years of real time. At the end of the film real time is moving even slower than filmtime.
At first sight it is especially the male (Paul played by Francois Cluzet) whose character is evolving (towards madness). At second glance it is above all the female (Nelly played by Emmanuelle Beart) who is interesting. Is she really having an affair or not? If not, why is she behaving sexual provocative if she knows about the jealousy of her man? And the final question: Why is she not leaving him when he becomes violent? As Roger Ebert put it in his critic: "Watching the movie, we focus on Paul. Remembering it, we think of Nelly".
