I wish they made such movies nowadays. Warner Brother’s production of The Devils was based on a stage play by the same name which was in turn adapted from Aldous Huxley’s Novel ‘The Devils of Loudon’. Ken Russell had great success as a director in 1971. It was accompanied by “The Music Lovers”, Tchaikovsky biopic, and “The boy friend’, a 1920s musical set featuring Twiggy. However, these were not his first films since Women In Love, his previous picture, received Golden Globe nominations and Academy Award recognition for him. As always with Ken Russell, this movie does not follow closely to what one could identify as expected tropes for its genre in this case historical drama. A wild ride it is, full of narrative hallucinations and vividness enhanced through the brilliant sets by Derek Jarman himself.
17th century France was licking its wounds after several religious conflicts. The autocratic Cardinal Richelieu wants to convince King Louis XIII that the remaining Protestants should be expelled from the country, and one possible way of going about it is by tearing down the fortified walls that were erected during the wars in order to resist their enemies’ attack. However, the Governor of Loudon had been guaranteed by the King his city would not be attacked. But this situation will not escape the eyes of Cardinal as he has got a willing ally in Sister Jeanne de Agnes (played by Vanessa Redgrave).
The governor is dead; now Urbain Grandier (Oliver Reed), a charismatic priest, becomes his successor. Reverend Mother Jeanne is charged with overseeing Saint Ursula’s convent and she spends most of her time dwelling on these things while getting off on them sexually. All this happens under Grandier’s nose who even goes ahead and impregnates another priest’s niece with whom he still sleeps after she breaks him how he can’t give birth because he is a man of God despite all their efforts, only to move on to Madeline. For that reason, Joanne accuses her imaginary lover of enchanting her and other nuns into practicing witchcraft against themselves through claim an inquiry must commence.
When you look at Warner Bros today, now rebranded as Warner Discovery, I see a hesitant and fearful film studio that used to embrace new talents and bold films. Now it is a group of trembling finance guys who produce low-quality movies while disposing of whatever they can for tax deductions. Seeing The Devils feels like going back in time when the studios loved making money but had some place holders who could authorize bizarre and difficult work to be projected on cinema screens. There are no simple likable heroes, or villains easy to hate. We witness a landscape that still remains trapped in an enigma of the ancient world and driven insane by the Black Plague which disregards their religious clichés.
Sister Jeanne is a character whose appearance I would assume most audience members have very strong opinions about. Redgrave is simply courageous in her performance. She’s a mom-superior that’s totally nuts, but then again who isn’t around here. Her back stooped so far forward that she could almost look at her feet and the spine bones poked out through the skin on it. Madeline asks Jeanne what kind of women become nuns, and Jeanne answers with malicious delight that they are girls who couldn’t get married by their parents because they were ugly or rebellious types instead of following orders like their parents wanted them to do. Still, she’s not a radical; she is pathetically small-minded, taking solace in tearing Grandier to shreds for his blindness to her before abruptly regretting it when he can no longer hear anything at all. In this way, by the third act, she has realized that she helped Cardinal Richelieu serve as an accomplice in Grandier’s murder as well as an executioner for him making sure he maintained dominance over France.
The Devils world is one of the highest level conflict between debauchery and the Church. More than that, Catholicism had been closer to paganism rather than to pedophilia devoid spirituality which it has become today. It wasn’t better then. I am sure such abuses sexual were already happening back then. People in Europe still had not completely cut off their relationship with the old ways. Hence, clergy discovered themselves having to address people’s emotions and desires instead of appealing to any intellect whatsoever. By doing this, Father Barre exemplifies how the film subtly blends the 1960s counterculture aesthetics with long haired religious figures who only need to hype up an audience “to make their point.”
What Russell has done here is a kind of an explosion that results in a chaotic situation which is anticipated by the entire film. When nuns are caught in Sister Jeanne’s claims, they strip off their clothes within no time and begin walking naked around the monastery as well as through town center.
We found that many of their habits are worn with shaven heads or as close to the scalp as possible. They engage in sexual activities alone, and with each other before people. It is beginning to emerge that Jeanne’s false stories allow these young women some breathing space as they get into slavery within the church. They have come up with a way of indulging themselves without feeling guilty at all. The Devil was cooperating with Grandier and so he persuaded the nuns to deceive him.
When this sexual freedom suddenly starts, this is the reason why keen interest of the Cardinal then the King come into play. This surely is bedlam and how can such a thing be let to happen in one of France’s cities? And guess who stands in front of these walls’ demise? The modernist style mixed with a 17th-century French setting takes us deeper into a dream like state. Is this reality or simply my imagination? I would say that it is important to consider an average European mindset at that time, which embraced the idea that spirits, gods, and demons controlled the world. For these individuals however, every moment was like that of a surrealistic haunted house.
Russell’s camera matches the wildness that erupts with the nuns. We do not have time to follow any event as whip pans swing our mind from one to another. High-angle shots stand for one character’s dominance over others while a person’s loyalty is revealed by low angle shots. It was definitely worth it, because there was a lot of time spent on composition and blocking of scenes. In Russell’s case, they are pre-digital crowds that he has been talking about all this time, hence amazing coordination and choreography by him and his crew.
The tone and style of this film were somewhat similar to Tom Twyker’s Perfume, another darkly surreal movie about France.
What makes it more interesting is that Russell clearly stated before now how he had grown up in a Catholic home and continued practicing his faith till now. However, being a man of faith who truly grasps where he comes from happens to be so different among them. Beliefs differ from institutions. The more humans try to formalize and narrow spirituality, the greater they ruin it. This is what Russell also highlights through an intermingling of state and religious power characterized by parallel agendas which are more than happy to use one another as stepping stones towards realizing their respective goals.
To me or you, it is easy to be a believer but when the heads of a nation use religion as an excuse for their misdeeds, it cannot be confused with anything else; in fact, it is the very definition of blasphemy.
One of the best films ever is The Devils. I was absolutely certain about this as soon as I saw the final credits go up on my screen and sat down here with my mouth hanging open over what I had just seen. It’s pretty common sight to see a director who has bitten off more than he can chew trying to make ten states on inherently unwieldy things in one movie. Richard Kelly’s Southland Tales provides a good example of that. If only those filmmakers would take lessons from what Ken Russell did here. By being smart and economical, and knowing when to go big vs. pulling back, he can say everything he wants to say. In my opinion, there hasn’t been another film that has captured the horrors & dangers of religious mania so much better than this.
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