L'Enfer (Danis Tanovic, 2005)

The second part of the Kieslowski-scripted loose trilogy, following on from the Tom Tykwer-helmed largely accomplished Heaven in 2002, Hell continues with themes familiar to the late Polish director's perennial preoccupations with past transgressions causing personal cataclysms in the present.
We're in France this time, with a trio of sisters all caught up with bourgeois family and relationship dilemmas. That could already be the crux of the rub: the mannered setting sets it at a remove from Kieslowski's masterful ability to create engagement with the characters. Although the casting of the sisters may not help too: one's a petulant loon, another a doormat, and the third the blankly pouting arthouse Bardot, Emmanuelle Béart. Carole Bouquet as the spitefully taciturn mother of the three does redress the balance but is seen too briefly.
There are still some wince-inducingly catharctic scenes, but it's a disjointed piece and doesn't augur well for Kieslowski's former scriptwriting partner Piesiewicz cannibalising what scraps he can find so that Purgatory ever gets made.

5/10