Film Review: The Devils

The Devils
Director: Ken Russell
Russo Productions, Warner Bros.
Released 7.16.1971

After 55 years in the making, SLFS regulars have the opportunity of a lifetime. After cuts, recuts, bannings, protests and public outrage, Ken Russell’s The Devils has been re-released in 4k for your viewing eyes, marking this the first time the film has been presented since 1971, in its rawest, uncensored form. 

The Devils follows Urbain Grandier, played by Oliver Reed (The Brood, Gladiator), who has been tasked with governing the small French town of Loudun, while both managing his duties as priest and sleeping his way around town. When King Louis the 13th (Graham Armitage, The Boyfriend, Scrooge) is convinced by his Statesman Cardinal to destroy the city walls of Loudun to extend his power, Grandier, being the only person standing in their way, is accused of witchcraft and possessing the nuns of the town. 

Sister Jean Des Agnes (Vanessa Redgrave, Girl, Interrupted, Mission: Impossible) is one of several (basically all) nuns obsessed with Grandier. After it is revealed that Grandier had married, Agnes is thrown into a frenzy and plots with Cardinal Richelieu (Christopher Logue, Dante’s Inferno, Moonlighting). The Cardinal enlists witch-hunter and exorcist extraordinaire Father Canon Jean-Mignon (Murray Melvin, Barry Lyndon, Phantom of the Opera) to prove that Grandier had possessed the sisters. The Father threatens the nuns with treason if they don’t go along with this scheme.

Russell creates a grand scene in Loudun, with walls and churches designed with such precision, all wrapped around a story depicting blasphemy in a way that charms you into preferring sin over the torture that the King’s men put the people of Loudun through. Russell fixates on Reed’s powerful demeanor throughout his story; whether it be his commanding voice booming throughout the city walls or his womanizing acts towards the sisters, it makes Grandier’s eventual downfall (both in physical appearance and in his fate) feel so monumental. 

Shirley Russell is credited as costume designer for The Devils, and her work almost gives you hope for anything good to happen in the 17th-century, plague-ridden France. The accessories the characters sport are beautiful, and the cinematography shows them off as well as captures the horrifying events surrounding the pristine, masterfully lit churches. The cleanliness, surrounded by the sacrilege and desecration of the holy churches, is what makes the movie both controversial and commanding. The shooting style changes with the nature of the story, and the “rape of Christ” scene (wonder why this movie was heavily censored) is absolute mayhem, rivaled by the colorful, abstract design of the King Louis scenes, blasphemous in their own right. 

The bravery behind the writing of the character Sister Jean Des Agnes is something that is to be appreciated. Her character is a repressed nun with seemingly no way out other than her fantasies of Grandier, who in her eyes is a Christ figure himself. Russell doesn’t make her a plain antagonist or a misunderstood personality; she represents personal desire bound by the oppressive structure of religious authority and her own insecurities.

Russell didn’t need to film sister Agnes masturbating with a crucifix, or create an orgy of possessed nuns, but it furthers the message of the story and the absurdity of the social laws of the church, the French government and the hysteria and cruelty that a “witch hunt” has had as a tool for those in power needing an excuse to do their dirty work.

The Devils is an accomplishment, and its bravery in being transgressive and controversial is one I appreciate greatly and one I look for every Sunday. –Sam Goodman

Read more film reviews by Sam Goodman:
Film Review: Insidious: Out of the Further
31 Nights of Secondhand Screenings

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