Henri-Georges Clouzot's L'Enfer

Not exactly a lost film, more a fleeting glimpse of what could have been one of the great films of the 1960s. Even though the soundtrack for these remaining fragments is missing, the images more than speak for themselves. The plan was for the "real world" scenes to be in black and white and the jealous husband's fantasies and torments in colour. This only paints half the picture though. The cans of test footage reveal a sequence of awe-inspiring visual experiments, designed to emphasise Marcel's distorted view of the world. Makeup and lighting combine to create an eerie effect of ever-changing expressions on his wife's face (A Scanner Darkly in live action) and the colour inversion sequences show the women with striking blue lipstick and a lake turning blood red. It's a tantalising glance at what could have been but as the documentary makes clear, Clouzot's perfectionism seemed to become an end in itself. Shooting slowed to a crawl; he pushed everyone to the edge of their limits; and finally the leading man walked off set, never to return. Even while plans were being made to find a replacement, the end finally came when the director himself had a heart attack. The interviewees and on-set photos give a vivid impression of events (I admit to a happy surge of excitement when Costa Gavras popped up, as articulate as ever) complemented by clips from the surviving footage. Although it's only there in fragmentary form, it still makes a powerful impression and one can safely say that it would have been a far more interesting version of the script than the one that eventutally surfaced 30 years later under the guidance of Chabrol. Yes, it might have been very much of it's time but it would still have been astonishing.