No Exit

The scene is a tawdry hotel room in what may be taken for limbo, where several damned souls have been gathered. At first they cannot understand where they are or why they are there. When the terrible truth dawns on them they begin to pick and snipe at one another, holding everyone but themselves responsible for their state. The film is built like a chamber play in a single setting; there is no way out and time does not pass. The account gives the punishment not as something arriving from outside but as what three people do to each other. Arletty and Gaby Sylvia appear in Jacqueline Audry’s ninety five minute French film, completed in 1954.