Anatomy of Hell

Anatomy of Hell (French: Anatomie de l'enfer) is a 2004 French erotic drama film directed by Catherine Breillat and written by Breillat based on her 2001 novel Pornocratie. According to Breillat, Anatomy of Hell is a "sequel" to Romance.

Teetering on the edge of overwhelming ennui, a lonely and dejected woman pays a gay man to join her for a daring, four-day exploration of sexuality in which both reject all convention and smash all boundaries while locked away from society in an isolated estate. Only when the man and woman confront the most unspeakable aspects of their sexuality will they have a pure understanding of how the sexes view one another.

The film was adapted by writer/director Breillat from her novel Pornocracy. The sexually explicit film stars Amira Casar as "the woman" and porn star Rocco Siffredi as "the man". Leonard Maltin summarizes: "After attempting suicide in the bathroom of a gay disco, a woman hires the man who rescues her to spend four nights in her company, challenging him to 'watch me where I'm unwatchable'."

The film polarized critics. Leonard Maltin gave the film zero stars and said the film was "homophobic" and "unintentionally funny".Roger Ebert stated: "I remember when hard-core first became commonplace, and there were discussions about what it would be like if a serious director ever made a porn movie. The answer, judging by Anatomy of Hell, is that the audience would decide they did not require such a serious director after all."

BBC film critic Jamie Russell gave the film four stars out of five:

The film went on to win "Best Feature Film" at the Philadelphia Film Festival.

Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reports a 26% rating based on 35 critics with an average rating of 3.6/10. The site's consensus states: "Ponderous, pretentious, and -- considering the subject matter -- dull." On Metacritic, the film has a 29 out of 100 rating based on 19 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".