El infierno del pasado

What is hell? Something to do with love. The love of Sophie's, of Céline's, of Anne's, of Sébastien's, of the mother's and of the Greek mythological figure Medea's their unrequited, unreciprocated love plus the mother's misjudgment on her husband.

The intricate plot of the three sisters' problems in their love life is primarily derived from the mistaken thought of their mother about their father's "sexual misbehavior". The riddle is demystified step after step to the daughters and they finally can come to relief. Only that the aged mother insists on her thought saying that she regrets nothing. She enjoys living in hell, complaining and making the other miserable.

Bosnian Danis Tanović is able to capture the French poetic cinematique style. All the actors are able to keep their bearing and flavour. Enjoyable. It is not a complicated story of vast or loud drama. It is closer to Krzysztof Kieslowski's mind. ("Heaven" somehow is novel, new in some ways, yet a little distant from KK's heart.) It is your and also my life. We live in hell at times because of mistake, misunderstanding or stubbornness.

Just saw Tanovic's "L'Enfer" last night at Sarajevo Film Festival. Being a Bosnian himself and being the only Director from this region who has ever won an Oscar (which is a source of envy on the part of many film-makers, critics and others in the industry who use every opportunity to blemish him and his work in sensationalism-prone media), he received a seating (unfortunately, not standing) ovation from the crowd. In my view, he deserves a standing ovation for his rendering of the script of a legendary Polish film-maker, Kiezslowski.

This is Tanovic's second movie after an awe-inspiring Oscar-winning debut (for those of you who do not hold Oscar in high esteem, he won a dozen awards from film academies and organizations all over the place). One might say that "L'Enfer" is a perfectly French movie with its setting, acting and pace, just as No Man's Land perfectly captured the essence of Bosnian predicament at the time. I was impressed by Tanovic's ability to make his movies very much recognizable, and yet retaining that note of universality that is very much needed for full appreciation by the international audience.

Nothing in this movie seems redundant or out of place to me, and everything from the opening scene, which is bordering on spectacular, down to the last words of Carol Bouqet with which the movie ends is in service of good film-making. Overall, Tanovic's "L'Enfer" is a worthwhile cinematic experience, a modern tragedy well-captured by a director with an eye for a detail, and finally an exciting second movie that will be, I'm sure, appreciated by movie-goers around the globe. An intelligent, likable, and well-executed piece! I could not wish for more.

Tanovic combines a compelling and riveting narrative with powerful and believable acting by a superb cast to create a thought-provoking, challenging, and rewarding film.

Premiered tonight at the Toronto International Film Festival, the film was well received by the audience, myself included. It was suitably thought-provoking and had me later thinking back to earlier moments in the film to forge my own connections with later events. I might even call the film thought-challenging - definitely a European, not American film, and ready to deal with tough and complex issues of family, betrayal, guilt, and self-doubt.

There were definitely some disturbing scenes and themes, but between Tanovic's direction and the actors' tour de force performances, I got through them, occasionally wanting to look away but compelled to watch nonetheless. Tanovic said before the screening began that he didn't expect the audience to necessarily "enjoy" the film, but hoped that we would appreciate it and watch it through to the end. I both appreciated it and watched it through to the end, and I can say without a doubt that I did enjoy it. Bravo to Mr. Tanovic and the actresses and actors (and the others involved in the making of this film).

I would take my friends to see this film, and then go out for coffee or a drink to discuss it with them.

I find it hard to comment on an art film, simply because art films provide more than just statements. They pose questions, questions unanswered, questions rhetorical, questionable statements.

Hell opens with a beautifully made sequence of a bird and her 3 eggs in a nest, through a kaleidoscope vision. One of the eggs was exchanged by another bird, and its chick "killed" the other two eggs. Personally, I think it's probably the best opening sequence I've ever seen. It's both beautiful, and yet very disturbing.

Like the opening, the movie is also beautiful and disturbing. The stories between the three sisters plays powerfully, pushing you towards the revelation given by the 'boy' who shamed their father. From then onwards it's straight forward. But before that, the characters seem to be so unrelated to each other and each story seems to play just because. Well, they're not what you expected them to be.

I didn't find it to be very emotional. It is gut-wrenching, but at the same time very rational. On the other hand, its rationality does not (logically?) lead into cliché or any expected outcome. There is a great number of subtlety that you might miss, so better keep your mind alerted while watching it.

I'd like to begin by saying that while this film undoubtedly shows the talents of its actual director, for the sake of this commentary I will assume it is a movie by Krysztof Kieslowski. I suppose this movie needs to be viewed together with Tom Tykwer's "Heaven" (2002) in order to be understood from a broader perspective (I don't think anyone has directed "Purgatory" yet, the third part of the trilogy suggested by Kieslowski). Another important source for understanding the film is perhaps Dante's "La Divina Commedia", since this is what inspired Kieslowski in the first place.

What the film does, I think, is to offer the viewer a set of disturbing stories, from the very first opening sequence of the bird hatching and pushing the other eggs out of the nest; All these stories, right to the end of the film, never reach any satisfactory resolution. Character's lives are simply damaged or destroyed by events based on misunderstanding or ignorance, as well as human fallibility. Perhaps this is what makes for the film's theme of "Hell". If this is so, and here I can only guess at what Kieslowski's original intentions might have been, then "L'Enfer" is a very modern film in it's representation of hell as the presence of unresolved, arbitrary trauma in human life - hence perhaps the professor's speech about destiny and coincidence is of central significance in understanding the movie. This may in fact be the question the movie is supposed to put to its audience: is life a matter of destiny, or is it just coincidence? This film therefore shares with all other works directed or inspired by Kieslowski that director's strengths, as well as his weaknesses. Kieslowski had a genius for translating transcendent concepts into immanent imagery, and showing the viewer the place where eternity and time coincide; "La Double Vie de Veronique" may be the best example of this. However, that same Polish genius tended to skim lightly over the harsher, more troubling aspects of human tragedy - I would have liked to have seen him attempt a movie about the holocaust, or the life of Job, because I think shadow, while not entirely missing, is nevertheless a little too stylised in his films. Evil is unfortunately real, and while there may be light at the end of every tunnel, the way there gets very dark indeed. A great filmmaker has a responsibility to show this, especially when dealing with universal themes. Hell is not a place that has the good looks of Emanuelle Beart (funnily enough, this actress also starred in a 1994 movie with the same title)! Overall, a movie worth watching.