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"When instinctive film artists have passed their chronological niche, they either parody themselves or set out for new fields of action at the risk of complete failure … Clouzot goes down swinging." – Paul Schrader
After a long career making gripping black-and-white thrillers such as Diabolique and Wages of Fear, Henri-Georges Clouzot changed tack completely in the 1960s, turning his hand instead to colourful avant-garde experimentation. His first project from that period, L'Enfer, was famously never completed; but in 1968, Clouzot managed to make one final film: La Prisonnière.
Bored with her mundane existence, an artist's wife becomes involved with a gallery owner, whose sadomasochistic fantasies both attract and repel her. As their affair deepens, her grip on reality begins to falter, and the film climaxes with an extended dream sequence – a flurry of spellbindingly colourful psychedelia.