Helen's blog

When the cast of a film released in 2009 features Romy Schneider, it might mean that something went terribly wrong at a shooting some decades ago. Indeed: in 1964, filming was halted because Henri-Georges Clouzot suffered a heart attack. Contrary to expectations, the film, which was on an unlimited budget, had three perfectly equipped and staffed crews, boasted big acting names and was expected to become a resounding modernist-experimental hit, had not been doing all that well even before the incident. The reasons and circumstances surrounding the events are presented by Bromberg and Medrea in a multi-layered documentary collage made up of shots filmed by Clouzot, behind-the-scenes events, interviews with crew members, carefully selected newly filmed dialogue between the two protagonists, as well as numerous experiments by the director regarding the use of colour, shading and lenses. The 185 rolls of exposed film stock would no doubt still be collecting dust were it not for (most probably) an intervention of fate, detaining Bromberg and Clouzot’s second wife Inès de Gonzalez inside a malfunctioning elevator for two hours during which she finally said yes to permit the use of the shots.  

“To me, Clouzot was an immense filmmaker; a great master capable of brilliantly directing all the visual and auditory dimensions of a creation. There was an unbelievable drive for perfection to be found in his person and his work, a drive that was undoubtedly at its peak during the filming of Inferno. In 1964, Clouzot was a mature filmmaker at the heart of a glorious career, at a moment when cinema in its entirety was questioning itself. So this film is quite naturally part of the whole dynamic consisting of inventing a different kind of cinema. The New Wave considered him to be an old-school director, but in any case he was convinced that his cinema was largely superior to that of the rising generation.” (Serge Bromberg)