In 17th-century France, Father Urbain Grandier seeks to protect the city of Loudun from the corrupt establishment of Cardinal Richelieu. Hysteria occurs within the city when he is accused of witchcraft by the sexually repressed Sister Jeanne.
Vanessa Redgrave Oliver Reed Dudley Sutton Max Adrian Gemma Jones Murray Melvin Michael Gothard Georgina Hale Brian Murphy Christopher Logue Graham Armitage John Woodvine Andrew Faulds Kenneth Colley Judith Paris Catherine Willmer Izabella Telezynska Niké Arrighi Pat Ashton Peter Avella Imogen Claire Barbie Denham Hugh Elton Harry Fielder Selina Gilbert Cheryl Grunwald Charles Price Charles Rayford Jack Sharp Show All…
Ken Russell's Film of The Devils, Los demonios, Οι Δαιμονισμένες, I Diavoli, Les Diables, Djevlene, I diavoli, Die Teufel, Ördögök, Os Demônios, Os Diabos, 악령들, Ďáblové, 卢丹的恶魔, Дьяволы, Şeytanlar, Djävlarna, Diabły
Italy
Venice Film Festival
USAR
UK18
ItalyVM18
Germany16
Netherlands
JapanR18+
France16
Denmark
Sweden15
Australia
Belgium
Norway18
ArgentinaX
Colombia
Mexico
UK18
Netherlands16
Argentina
Australia
Belgium
Colombia
Denmark
France
Germany
Italy
Japan
Mexico
Netherlands
Norway
Sweden
UK
USA
This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
so movie money sure isn't as brave as it used to be, huh?
good god. this was put out (or not) by WARNER BROS! how timid and small-minded our commercial art has become.
such gloriously righteous indignation, and Jarman's neo-futurist design still gives the madness a divine scale. any movie that ends with someone furiously masturbating as an expression of their own eternal misery is fine by me. perfect halloween viewing.
Father Urbain Grandier??? nah what a jerk what a— [trips] [hundreds of thousands of photos of Father Grandier spill out of jacket] w-what a fuckign asshole i these arent mine im just [gathering them up frantically sweating] listen i just listen fuck [thousands of pictures of Father Grandier scatter across the floor] shit fcuk im holding them for a friend just LISTEN
One of THE most excruciatingly difficult cinematic experiences out there. It probably wasn't beneficial for my mental health to watch this and Under the Skin in the same evening. I hated Vanessa Redgrave's character so much that I might honestly hate Vanessa Redgrave now, haha. Kidding, kidding, but wow, what a deplorable human being Sister Jeanne was (albeit a product of her environment). Then again, what character in this film wasn't a deplorable human being and an abuser of their faith - aside from maybe Urbain Grandier during the latter half of the film (as well as his wife, though her role was relatively minimal)? I've always thought it to be true that, while religion isn't an inherently bad creation,…
Rest In Peace Urbain Grandier. You would’ve loved MDMA and anal beads and silicone lube and ketamine orgies and toe rings and rubberdolls and fucking machines and fetish parties and poppers and fleshlights and girldick and fake tits and
beautiful movies make life worth living!!!
A monument of transgression, a brutal exhumation of what is most hypocritical in the intersection between power and faith.
But hold on, it already seems like heresy? And It is, not only the plot but in the making of the film itself. The way Russell stages his iconoclasm without concern, without fear of the damnation that any minor filmmaker would try to avoid. He doesn’t apologize, he doesn’t hide behind vague symbolism. Blasphemy, lust, collective madness — everything is laid bare for all to see, with the conviction of someone who knows they are committing an unforgivable artistic crime.
The message of the film, in my opinion, is a questioning of the nature of power itself, whether ecclesiastical or political.…
Jesus Fucking Christ.
90
Unrivaled debauchery. Depicts Church and State as two extremes, the happy medium only uncovered when any disconnect from either is attempted. That a priest is portrayed as a drunken playboy billionaire only to lose his influence over the prospect of sexual freedom for all via a band of nuns who desire him is precedent - who would've thought the State interferes when people find commonality in being free? Ken Russell's profane sense of crowd-control and sustained chaos is simply stupendous, with the towering architecture and delectable costuming being set-dressing for the outrageous. A film of figures and symbols perverted and unleashed from their sole design.
Best first watch of 2021 so far. This had been a gap for a long time and its standing as a breathless, relentless visual orgy easily overwhelmed its reputation as a "shocking" studio production. Derek Jarman was still in his twenties when he created a production design that collided modernist style into a baroque 17th century French setting. Oliver Reed is in his terrifying but in the good way phase, symbiotic with Ken Russell on their fifth feature together. Russell's frantic whip-pans and high-angled framing of omniscient power and punishment irradiate Vanessa Redgrave's mad-eyed performance as Sister Jeanne, the scorned, manipulated tool of the church, to make this hysteria cinema at its most unrestrained. It's fun! (Michael Gothard as the zealot Father Barre is going for it bigger and more fearlessly even than Reed.) It's also a tidy artifact of false panic. Nude nuns, licentious priests, and ritual torture. Imagine that.
***One of the best 150 films I have ever seen.***
Cardinal-Duke of Richelieu and of Fronsac (1585 - 1642) was a French clergyman and statesman that ultimately became a cardinal in 1622 and the chief minister of King Louis XIII in 1624. During his rise to power in both the Catholic Church and the French government, he looked after the destruction of domestic factions. This ultimately led him to apply a corrupt establishment that transformed France into a centralized state. He advocated for the destruction of fortified cities and with a government of their own in order to seize total control of France under the vision of Church and State being unified while crushing the Protestants that rebelled against the…
too many hoes in this house of sin
Watched the uncut version tonight. As a dyke/fag/pervert/witch who grew up Catholic, this is obviously my shit. I felt multiple generations of ancestors spinning in their graves while I watched this cackling like a demonic whore. Oliver Reed is pure sex meat and at one point throws an alligator at a man accusing of him of fucking his daughter. Vanessa Redgrave capturing what my current period of celibacy looks and feels like (had a dream last night that I was having sex with a raptor in Jurassic Park btw). The real underrated performance in this is Michael Gothard as Father Pierre Barre. Unhinged. The art direction is immaculate, the cinematography is gorgeous, and the crotches are unshaven. The way this movie effortlessly shifts from horny to hilarious to brutal to romantic to spiritual to terrifying is aspirational. I hope I can one day make something this blasphemous and this much of a tonal pogo stick.
