Tweet

Hell was originally conceived by Krzysztof Kieslowski and screenwriter Krzysztof Piesiewicz as part of a trilogy alongside Heaven and Purgatory. Set in Italy, Heaven was made by Tom Tykwer in 2002. Set in France, Hell is a brooding family drama in which three sisters live very separate lives in present-day Paris, each still coming to terms with their father's suicide which they witnessed as young children more than twenty years earlier. This family tragedy bears heavily on the sisters' respective attempts to cultivate healthy relationships. Celine is the only sibling to take an interest in their disabled mother (Carole Bouquet), whilst Sophie (Emmanuelle Beart) is tormented by her husband's presumed infidelity and student Anne is hopelessly tangled in a relationship with a university lecturer.
In Hell, Tanovic moves away from the history and politics of his native Bosnia and also abandons the austere visual style that characterised No Man's Land. Working from Kieslowski and Piesiewicz's screenplay, he has fashioned a sumptuous drama, gorgeously shot and acted, that is a powerful examination of the struggle between fate and self-determination.

 

Pasquale Iannone on 11th August 2006
View all 52 of Pasquale Iannone's reviews