70's Watch: The Devils (1971)

Watched:  03/19/2024

Format:  Criterion

Viewing:  First

Director:  Ken Russell

Selection:  Oh, no one was going to watch this with me

Years ago I'd read about the Ursuline nuns of Loudun and their possession.  I have no idea in what context I'd stumbled across it, but it definitely stuck in the back of my head.  In fact, when The Little Hours came out, I thought it was a riff on this event (it wasn't, and I didn't watch much of the movie when I saw it on HBO).  

I wasn't actually seeking this movie out in particular.  I saw a Ken Russell movie was on Criterion, I like a good challenge of a movie from time to time - and Russell does provide that.  It had Oliver Reed and Vanessa Redgrave, so I figured - sure, let's give it a spin.

For Americans, the closest proximate I would suggest would be The Crucible - but notch it up to an NC-17, add utter madness to the mix, way too many people, and a chance to lose faith in humanity for a bit, and there you go.  

Reed plays Grandier, a local head priest to Loudun who is crosswise with Cardinal Richelieu (you may know zero French history and still know you're allowed to dislike this guy thanks to him appearing as the villain in The Three Musketeers).  A head nun, Sister Jeanne (Redgrave), develops a fascination with Grandier despite never meeting him, and feels a deep lust to which she is unaccustomed.  She essentially begins behaving like a lunatic.  The city is on the brink with a plague wrapping up and Richelieu looking to remove the protective walls.  Also, Grandier loves the ladies and has knocked up the daughter of one of the town's more prominent political movers and shakers.  

Sister Jeanne's behavior is seen as possession, which she blames on Grandier - who has done the usual "took me to a Black Mass" type stuff.  It goes poorly for Grandier, who winds up in a sham trial, and eventually executed.  

If you know the outline of The Crucible, you can guess the basics.  That both are based on real world events and why some may side-eye the idea of theocracy as the way things oughta be.  

This was written and directed by Russell, who is not tied down by historical accuracy and who doesn't have many things he isn't willing to show, do or say in his films.  The design of the film is incredible, mixing what seems to be period set, design and costuming with some modern bits and an improbable set of walls around the city.  The panel considering Grandier's case are dressed in KKK-like masks and robes*, the matching wardrobe of the teaming spectators there to mock and jeer the nuns, then the trial, is a wall of absurdity, in black and white.

Unlike The Crucible, where there's certainly an implication that things have gotten way out of control for crazy reasons, The Devils is explicit about how the machinery of the law and courts and church can be easily exploited for personal or political gain, or even petty revenge.  Invisible spectres and demons can be blamed on anyone one likes, and to drive out those demons, any treatment at all is imaginable if it will help.

There's a theatricality to the film that works to its advantage as so much of what's happening is about showmanship one way or another, whether Richelieu's servants playing it to the hilt, the nuns "going mad", or the audience that forms enjoying the show that means life or death for the players.

The movie is *a lot*.  But it's also a convincing argument for its points.  We may be separated in time from the event, but we also need to be constantly vigilant not to allow ourselves to participate in any of the roles that enable this sort of thing.  

It's also not anti-religion, per se.  It's Grandier's faith that is never in doubt - which is something we can't say for everyone else.  But it is against how religion and institutions that rely on faith can be so easily corrupted and used as weapons.  Or things can be imagined and given credence because they're convenient tools.  It would be far easier to dismiss faith as for fools, but both the real Grandier and the one in the film make the better choice.

With ample nudity and unpleasantness, I won't recommend the movie for everyone, but it's worth a look-see if you're curious.  

Late edit:  After posting, pal Ryan M mentioned a doc on the movie I should watch, so I did.

*Another late edit:  Pal NathanC pointed out that the guys in the masks are based on the masks worn during Semana Santa which was/ is practiced in France and Spain.  Much of the plot of the film hinges on the Catholic/ Protestant split in France at the time, and I am not enough of an historian - and am not remotely Catholic enough - to know anything about the tradition other than having a vague recollection of the masks from other films.