Not a pleasant film to watch, and it does get a little repetitive by the end, but still a masterful psychological thriller that attempts, and largely succeeds at, the not so easy task of entering into a man's brain and showing us how it operates: how he confuses fantasy with reality, how in brief moments of mental clarity he can realize what's happening to him but he is unable to control it, etc. For Claude Chabrol, the essence of insane jealousy seems to be that you stop seeing your partner as a person and you start seeing them as your property. The movie visually progresses according to the story: open, sunny and idyllic at the start, dark, stormy and claustrophobic at the end. Both Cluzet and Beart give career-defining performances. See "L'Enfer" when you're in the mood for something more than simple "entertainment". *** out of 4.
Review of Hell
