L'Enfer D'Henri Georges Clouzot (Henri Georges Clouzot's Inferno) (2009)

In 1964, the famed French director Henri Georges Clouzot (WAGES OF FEAR, DIABOLIQUE) attempted his most ambitious film yet. A film about a husband (Serge Reggiani) insanely jealous of his young wife (Romy Schneider). The film would venture into cinematic territory that Clouzot had never attempted before. The shooting was a disaster and the film abandoned after three weeks of shooting. Piecing together surviving footage from the film as well as new footage with Berenice Bejo (THE ARTIST) and Jacques Gamblin in Schneider's and Reggiani's roles (for scenes never shot) and interviewing the surviving cast and crew, Serge Bromberg's documentary examines the history of the film and its collapse. The footage that survives is stunning and while we'll never know, it has all the earmarks of an innovative masterpiece. The documentary shows Clouzot as a director with an amazing vision but unable to translate it to his satisfaction, his pushing the actors beyond limits that any actor has to suffer and three entire camera crews often waiting around while Clouzot waits for inspiration. This documentary is de rigeur for anyone remotely interested in Clouzot or cinema. With Dany Carrel, Jean Claude Bercq and Catherine Allegret.