-By David Noh

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A film maudit if ever there was one, Henri-Georges Clouzot's Inferno (L’enfer) began filming in 1964 and, due to a number of reasons, was never finished. Veteran director Clouzot, known as the Hitchcock of France for his tersely compelling psychological dramas like Le Corbeau, The Wages of Fear and Diabolique, was greatly influenced by the French New Wave movement, as well as Fellini's 8 1/2, and was determined to make this study of obsessive jealousy a highly subjective, personal treatise on human passion and how it can destroy the psyche.

Filmmakers Serge Bromberg and Ruxandra Medrea were lucky to acquire thousands of feet of originally shot footage from Clouzot's widow, and cobbled together this recreation of the disastrous project. Luckily, a number of crew members survive to talk about their experience, including Costa-Gravas, the film's editor.

Clouzot acquired the services of actors Serge Reggiani (described as having the face of a carved chestnut, he ended up quitting the movie) and international supernova Romy Schneider to play the central couple in question, and Schneider's presence in particular brought in big overseas money which helped to capsize the project. The movie suddenly became more and more elaborate, with additional, unnecessary film crews sitting around while Clouzot wasted time and energy trying to come up with something to shoot. An insomniac workaholic, he'd think nothing of phoning people up in the middle of the night at the lake location where they were all imprisoned, to discuss the next day's filming. All of Clouzot's noted economy and storyboarded precision seemed to fly out the window as he continued to adjust his shaky vision, causing more than one co-worker to observe that it was as if he didn't really want to finish it.

Using the original script and hired actors, the filmmakers here recreate some of the dialogue scenes, which do little to convince one of any inherent brilliance lost to fate forever. As for the reclaimed footage, you can sense what Clouzot was going for, but little of it conveys much sense, apart from a disoriented madness. It's initially fascinating, but after a while all those tricky camera effects and bizarre makeup tests become monotonous in their basic formlessness.

What does emerge, without a doubt, is the spectacular terrain of Romy Schneider as the ultimate camera subject. Her radiant, impossibly perfect beauty holds up indomitably under even the most bizarre directorial conceit—one of which has her topless and tied to a railroad track before an oncoming train (shades of Pearl White!)—and the image of her water skiing, her voluptuous body undulating left and right, is that of a modern Eve.