A woman drives at Formula One speed through Paris, multiplying the traffic violations. She runs into the headquarters of a television company and begs for a rare boon : she wants to appear live on television, immediately, in order to talk to the unknown person who abducted her little girl. Granted the chance to make an appeal, she promises the kidnapper any princely ransom he can think of - and she also promises to deliver the ransom by herself, without any police involvement. Will the kidnapper react ? And how ?
Sombre, grim and uncomfortably realistic, "To each his own hell" moves, shocks, mesmerizes and repulses. The protagonist, a middle-aged wife and mother, is a decent and law-abiding citizen who gets caught up in an ever more atrocious confrontation with evil ; it's a 'via crucis', and it's going to end very, very badly. There's a scene with a blue plastic bag which, once seen, can never be unseen...
The movie threatens to overdo it - there's a point, in art, where "trop" becomes "trop" - but I think it remains just on the right side of the border. However, just a bit more restraint and nuance might have lifted the movie to still greater heigths.
A good movie and, for those new to French cinema, a fine introduction to the work of Annie Girardot, one of the most notable actresses of the seventies.
Sombre, grim and uncomfortably realistic, "To each his own hell" moves, shocks, mesmerizes and repulses. The protagonist, a middle-aged wife and mother, is a decent and law-abiding citizen who gets caught up in an ever more atrocious confrontation with evil ; it's a 'via crucis', and it's going to end very, very badly. There's a scene with a blue plastic bag which, once seen, can never be unseen...
The movie threatens to overdo it - there's a point, in art, where "trop" becomes "trop" - but I think it remains just on the right side of the border. However, just a bit more restraint and nuance might have lifted the movie to still greater heigths.
A good movie and, for those new to French cinema, a fine introduction to the work of Annie Girardot, one of the most notable actresses of the seventies.