Diabeł (1972) aka The Devil
A surreal trip thru scenes imbued with obscure personal and political symbolism. That the Socialists considered the film dangerous there can be no doubt, as this was the film that first got Andrzej Żuławski kicked out of Poland.
While soldiers invade and massacre the hysterical contents of a convent housing political prisoners and madmen, a shellshocked would-be regicide is helped to escape (by his self-professed spiritual guide, but more likely the titular Devil himself,) and sent home accompanied by a young nun. His companion conspirator is killed.
Poland is divided because of the war.
Chance meeting with a wandering troupe of actors in the forest he is invited/seduced into joining them but rejects the off
Next, reaching a manor he sees companions from his past (among them, his betrothed, now heavy with child,) performing a strange dance, but is stopped from approaching them.
A priest comes in a performs a marriage ceremony. The couple leaves the group to have sex, with the escapee and his guide witnessing the act from the room next door.
The result of it is not perfectly clear, but he attacks her. They leave the manor, and the guide has an epileptic seizure in the woods.
Reaching his own home, he finds his father two weeks dead already, killed by a bullet to the head. A midget explains it was suicide and curses him for attempting to kill the king. A young man has stolen his father’s clothes. He is welcomed by his sister who is overjoyed at seeing him alive. The youth claims to want to marry his sister, and they all get into a violent scuffle. As the father is getting buried, the unknown young main claims to be his brother. They fight yet again.
The devilish guide reappears, reveals his mother is a prostitute, and gives him directions on how to find her. At her brothel, his mother confuses him for a client and readies herself to service him. She actually mounts him before he reveals his identity. Naturally, she freaks out. He is approached by a young prostitute who offers (ahem!) somewhat unusual services, and he cuts her throat.
His sister finds him in the woods and reveals their father sexually abused her. He asks his brother to kill him and end his torment, but the brother refuses.
Walking out to the forest he finds the theatrical troupe performing Hamlet, thus reinforcing themes of regicide, dead fathers, faithless mothers, and a closed dramatic system where the same characters keep meeting themselves again and again.
Initially it might have seemed as if he had been traveling long distances, but now he goes back to the manor where the marriage was held, now apparently within walking distance. He was hoping to take back his former betrothed, but she reveals she was prostituted by her father (including to the king himself,) in order to gain influence. Her husband whips him and drags him on horseback.
Him and his old buddy have a confrontation, but his former friend lets him go on the condition not to return.
He meets again with the Devil and has a quick vision of a skeletal Death in the woods.
His mother offers herself to him, this time freely and knowing full well who he is. The Hamlet actor attacks him trying to stop the sexual tryst but is slashed and killed with a straight razor. He also kills his mother, following instructions he received from the Devil.
He admits his crimes to the troupe leader, who tells him he will be let go but then attempts to bugger him. The Devil appears and saves him.
Back home, another confrontation with his sister and brother follows. He finds the two recent corpses in a closet, but horsemen chase him and the nun out into the now snowy fields. The Devil interrupts yet again another potential sexual encounter (these interruptions are now a recurring theme,) and the two move on to a ruined castle in the forest to escape the cold.
Meetings keep on happening with the same people, and the same places keep getting revisited. Characters start dying off one by one, whether by miscarriage, fights, duels, etc. A dead character reappears only to be killed again. The repeated weapon of choice is a straight razor, but pistols and swords are also used. The violence is sudden, shocking and brutal. Even a horse gets it.
Little by little the parallels with Hamlet become more and more obvious, and a final plot which supposedly explains these events is revealed, though its full nature is still not quite clear.
As is often the case, not only with foreign productions with distinct political and historical situations under which they were filmed and with which one may not be fully familiar, but also where continued censorship has taught artists to become sutler and subtler in their messaging so that to an outsider meaning becomes all but indiscernible, it’s still obvious this film is packed with it. Whether one, as an outsider, might be able to glean it is a different issue.
The main contradictory themes of division, but also of repeated incest of a society closed and impeding not only entry of outside influences, but also the ability of those within it to exit its system might still be fairly obvious, but maybe not so other aspects.
Regardless of that, the richness of the scenes is rewarding even when their symbolism may remain frustratingly out of one’s grasp.
A fascinating work.
With Małgorzata Braunek, Leszek Teleszyński, and Michal Grudzinski.
Check it out.
A surreal trip thru scenes imbued with obscure personal and political symbolism. That the Socialists considered the film dangerous there can be no doubt, as this was the film that first got Andrzej Żuławski kicked out of Poland.
While soldiers invade and massacre the hysterical contents of a convent housing political prisoners and madmen, a shellshocked would-be regicide is helped to escape (by his self-professed spiritual guide, but more likely the titular Devil himself,) and sent home accompanied by a young nun. His companion conspirator is killed.
Poland is divided because of the war.
Chance meeting with a wandering troupe of actors in the forest he is invited/seduced into joining them but rejects the off
Next, reaching a manor he sees companions from his past (among them, his betrothed, now heavy with child,) performing a strange dance, but is stopped from approaching them.
A priest comes in a performs a marriage ceremony. The couple leaves the group to have sex, with the escapee and his guide witnessing the act from the room next door.
The result of it is not perfectly clear, but he attacks her. They leave the manor, and the guide has an epileptic seizure in the woods.
Reaching his own home, he finds his father two weeks dead already, killed by a bullet to the head. A midget explains it was suicide and curses him for attempting to kill the king. A young man has stolen his father’s clothes. He is welcomed by his sister who is overjoyed at seeing him alive. The youth claims to want to marry his sister, and they all get into a violent scuffle. As the father is getting buried, the unknown young main claims to be his brother. They fight yet again.
The devilish guide reappears, reveals his mother is a prostitute, and gives him directions on how to find her. At her brothel, his mother confuses him for a client and readies herself to service him. She actually mounts him before he reveals his identity. Naturally, she freaks out. He is approached by a young prostitute who offers (ahem!) somewhat unusual services, and he cuts her throat.
His sister finds him in the woods and reveals their father sexually abused her. He asks his brother to kill him and end his torment, but the brother refuses.
Walking out to the forest he finds the theatrical troupe performing Hamlet, thus reinforcing themes of regicide, dead fathers, faithless mothers, and a closed dramatic system where the same characters keep meeting themselves again and again.
Initially it might have seemed as if he had been traveling long distances, but now he goes back to the manor where the marriage was held, now apparently within walking distance. He was hoping to take back his former betrothed, but she reveals she was prostituted by her father (including to the king himself,) in order to gain influence. Her husband whips him and drags him on horseback.
Him and his old buddy have a confrontation, but his former friend lets him go on the condition not to return.
He meets again with the Devil and has a quick vision of a skeletal Death in the woods.
His mother offers herself to him, this time freely and knowing full well who he is. The Hamlet actor attacks him trying to stop the sexual tryst but is slashed and killed with a straight razor. He also kills his mother, following instructions he received from the Devil.
He admits his crimes to the troupe leader, who tells him he will be let go but then attempts to bugger him. The Devil appears and saves him.
Back home, another confrontation with his sister and brother follows. He finds the two recent corpses in a closet, but horsemen chase him and the nun out into the now snowy fields. The Devil interrupts yet again another potential sexual encounter (these interruptions are now a recurring theme,) and the two move on to a ruined castle in the forest to escape the cold.
Meetings keep on happening with the same people, and the same places keep getting revisited. Characters start dying off one by one, whether by miscarriage, fights, duels, etc. A dead character reappears only to be killed again. The repeated weapon of choice is a straight razor, but pistols and swords are also used. The violence is sudden, shocking and brutal. Even a horse gets it.
Little by little the parallels with Hamlet become more and more obvious, and a final plot which supposedly explains these events is revealed, though its full nature is still not quite clear.
As is often the case, not only with foreign productions with distinct political and historical situations under which they were filmed and with which one may not be fully familiar, but also where continued censorship has taught artists to become sutler and subtler in their messaging so that to an outsider meaning becomes all but indiscernible, it’s still obvious this film is packed with it. Whether one, as an outsider, might be able to glean it is a different issue.
The main contradictory themes of division, but also of repeated incest of a society closed and impeding not only entry of outside influences, but also the ability of those within it to exit its system might still be fairly obvious, but maybe not so other aspects.
Regardless of that, the richness of the scenes is rewarding even when their symbolism may remain frustratingly out of one’s grasp.
A fascinating work.
With Małgorzata Braunek, Leszek Teleszyński, and Michal Grudzinski.
Check it out.
statistics: Posted by hermanthegerm — 3:12 PM - 1 day ago — Replies 1 — Views 216