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Review - L'Enfer (Inferno/Hell) (continued)
The third strand of the story has Celine being stalked by mystery man Sebastian (Guilliam Canet). Celine is bookish and lonely, and comes to the wrong conclusion as to the intentions of Sebastian. She believes he is a romantic suitor, and is humiliated too because of this misapprehension. In fact Sebastian has a confession which explains the mystery of the opening scene and we learn of a great wrong that was done to the girls' father.
In deference to Kieslowski's Three Colours trilogy, costume designer Caroline de Vivaise colour-codes the three daughters whenever they are on screen. Sophie is the earthy passionate one, and is accompanied by reds and dark browns. Anne is colour-coded green, representing fertility. Celine is represented by blue - not because she is dispassionate, but because she suffers from remoteness and is isolated from love.
Beyond the excellence of the narrative, directing, camerawork, script and performances we are treated to a recurring theme, written by Tanovic and Dusko Segvic. It has a music box quality so sounds timeless, which is very appropriate given the source material.
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Kieslowski and Piesiewicz finished the adaptation of the third strand of Dante's poem. Heaven was filmed and released in 2002, directed by Tom Tykwer, and starred Cate Blanchett. The middle section, 'Purgatory', has never been filmed. Perhaps this is because it is now difficult to isolate. Tanovic's adaptation has strayed into the middle ground, so it may be prudent to view director Stanislaw Mucha's Nadzieja as providing the missing material - although this is the middle section of a different trilogy, 'Faith', 'Hope' and 'Love', by the same writers.
This film manages to be true to Kieslowski's vision of movie making, which he shares with a very elite group, including Jean-Luc Godard. Their movies are intellectually challenging, visually striking, and also highly entertaining. Tanovic has done an excellent job in realising this in his vastly adapted screenplay.
9/10 Intelligent and Entertaining