Film reviews: Henry-Georges Clouzot's Inferno | A Prophet | Welcome

Published on Saturday 14 November 2009 13:56

HENRY-GEORGES CLOUZOT'S INFERNO (15)

****

Henri-Georges Clouzot is best known for his French noirs The Wages Of Fear and Les Diaboliques, but this documentary by Serge Bromberg and Ruxandra Medrea Annonier delves into a later episode in his life. In the early 1960s, Clouzot, a manipulative control-freak, decided to go all new wave with a hallucinatory psychological thriller, L'Enfer (Inferno), starring Romy Schneider, below. Featuring interviews with the surviving members of L'Enfer's cast and crew, and excerpts from the 185 cans of film footage, this documentary offers a fascinating insight into the effort of marshalling a movie so left-field that its director lost the plot and couldn't find a way of setting a wayward project to rights.

Glasgow Film Theatre, tonight and tomorrow

A PROPHET (15)

****

Jacques Audiard's 2009 Cannes Grand Prix winner delves inside a violent French prison for a riveting story about an illiterate Arab inmate who educates himself and becomes a player in drug and smuggling circles. Nineteen-year-old Malik el Djebena (Tahar Rahim) enters jail on a six-year stretch and is immediately pushed into greater crimes by the reigning Corsican gang. The alliances in the jail can be hard to follow at times but the dehumanising effect of routine brutality is unmistakable.

Glasgow Film Theatre, Friday only (part of French Film Festival)

WELCOME (15)

***

Trekking from Iraq to his girlfriend in England, Bilal (Firat Ayverdi), a 17-year-old Kurd finds the last leg of his journey halted at Calais by immigration officials. Determined to cross the Channel, marry his sweetheart and play for his favourite team, Manchester United, Bilal resolves to swim the last 26 miles and enlists newly divorced former champion swimmer Simon (Vincent Lindon) to help him train. An unfussy story of human bonding overcomes some narrative awkwardness and proves to have a strong emotional undercurrent.

Filmhouse, Edinburgh, and Glasgow Film Theatre, until Thursday

This article was first published in Scotland on Sunday on 15/11/09