Henri-Georges Clouzot's Inferno

Henri-Georges Clouzot's Inferno (L'Enfer d'Henri-Georges Clouzot, 2009) is a documentary you can watch online on iFILM, directed by Serge Bromberg and Ruxandra Medrea. In 1964 Clouzot launched a psychological drama, L'Enfer, about a husband eaten alive by groundless jealousy — Romy Schneider in the lead, a studio's blank check behind him.

Three weeks in, it collapsed. Clouzot kept shooting endless optical tests, his lead actor walked off, and the director had a heart attack. From fifteen hours of surviving footage, Bromberg and Medrea piece together what the film might have been: hallucinatory color experiments, screen tests, and unfilmed scenes performed by Bérénice Bejo and Jacques Gamblin.

What emerges is a rare portrait of a brilliant idea buckling under its own weight. The film took the César for Best Documentary. Watch it for the Schneider reels alone — psychedelic test footage with almost no equal in cinema. Stream Henri-Georges Clouzot's Inferno (2009) online on iFILM.