The Devils (1971) - film review

In 17th Century France, Catholics and Protestants live together in peace in the town of Loudun, under the benign governorship of the much-loved but slightly over-sexed priest Urbain Grandier.   Far from being a model, Cardinal Richelieu sees Loudun as a threat to his own political ambitions, and therefore a threat to France.  Fearing a Protestant uprising, Richelieu is inimical to the idea that towns should be self-governing and intends to demolish Loudun’s fortifications to weaken its power.   Baron de Laubardemont is sent by the Cardinal to do just this but Grandier intervenes and expels the baron and his men before they can do their work.  Richelieu is outraged at this development and resolves to crush Loudun and its troublesome priest.  He has his opportunity when the Mother Superior of an Ursuline convent, Sister Jeanne, becomes sexually obsessed with Grandier.   The deformed Sister Jeanne has long loved the priest but she is driven insane when he rejects her and marries another woman, Madeline De Brou.  A crazed witchhunter Father Barre arrives in the town and, through a series of debauched exorcisms, confirms that Sister Jeanne has been bewitched by Grandier.  After visiting King Louis XIII to seek his support in maintaining his town’s autonomy, Grandier returns to Loudon and is immediately arrested on a charge of heresy and witchcraft.  Grandier protests his innocence but he soon realises he is merely a pawn in a political game.  As he burns at the stake, jeered at by those who once loved him, the walls of the town come tumbling down.  Richelieu has scored another victory.

When it was first released in 1971, Ken Russell’s The Devils met with a torrent of outrage from critics and commentators, whose collective hysterical reaction must have looked something like the film’s frenzied exorcism sequences, albeit with less breast and gore.  Russell had already acquired a measure of notoriety with his television drama Dance of the Seven Veils, which famously portrayed the composer Richard Strauss as a Nazi, so the critics were raring to go after him, like a pack of half-starved hounds that had just scented fresh blood.  The Devils was a sitting target for those who had not taken kindly to Russell’s penchant for the flamboyant and the provocative.  With its graphic depictions of debauchery, rape and torture (some of which still manage to be profoundly shocking), it could hardly fail to offend the sensibilities of the newspaper columnists who had no shame when it came to exposing their cultural ignorance and reactionary prejudices.  Much of the criticism was driven by the film’s negative portrayal of the Church as an instrument of political ambition which, given its historical context, is a bit like criticising the sky for being that pale blue colour.   

The film is adapted from John Whiting’s 1960 play The Devils, which was itself based on Aldous Huxley’s 1952 book The Devils of Loudun.  The latter was inspired by the real-life story of Urbain Grandier, a 17th Century French priest who was executed for witchcraft on the orders of Cardinal Richelieu, reputedly for reasons of political expediency.  Although the film employs some exotic (and sometimes needlessly heretical) imagery, and is notably inaccurate in its portrayal of both Richelieu and King Louis XIII, it does provide an authentic and credible depiction of the political intrigue, religious intolerance and brutality of the time.  Much of the film’s visual impact comes from Derek Jarman’s extraordinary sets, which are sympathetic to the period and yet are stylised in a way that subtly exposes the vice and corruption that were slowly devouring both Church and State.  The stench of moral decay is more than apparent beneath the surface of starched piety, so we almost welcome the flames that fill the screen at the end of the film, as if to purge this world of its vile putrescence.
 
The Devils boasts some extraordinary performances, not least of which is Oliver Reed’s arresting portrayal of the ill-fated Father Grandier.  Reed has often been criticised for over-acting, particularly in his later years, but here he turns in a skilfully nuanced performance of exceptional power and quality.  Grandier is a complex, deeply flawed character, a hedonist destined to become a martyr, yet Reed makes him sympathetic and believable, providing a tiny oasis of calm around which the maelstrom of demonic hysteria performs its frenzied dance.  Reed’s tour de force performance is complemented by Vanessa Redgrave’s tortured portrayal of an erotomaniac hunchbacked nun and Dudley Sutton’s turn as the deliciously petulant Baron De Laubardemont.  The only let down on the acting front comes from Christopher Logue and Graham Armitage, who play Richelieu and Louis XIII a little too much like a Monty Python tribute act.  (I am not an expert on the period, but I am pretty certain that King Louis did not go about looking like Julian Clary’s camp sister and spend his leisure hours shooting Protestants in bird outfits.)

The Devils is unquestionably one of the most daring and inspired films in British cinema.  What gives it a particular significance is that it is one of the few works in contemporary cinema that challenges the notion that the Church and religion represent the acme of human morality.  Even in today’s supposedly liberated secular society, it is assumed that religion is something that is intrinsically good - a viewpoint that few are willing to oppose, in spite of the evidence to the contrary which history presents us with.  The Devils doesn’t beat about the bush, it shows us exactly what is wrong with religion and why we should be wary of it.  At a time when religious fundamentalism, in its most extreme and ugliest form, is on the rise, Russell’s film has acquired a greater resonance.  In its lurid portrayal of a world descending into confusion and anarchy as a consequence of an unholy union of faith and ambition, The Devils provides a timely parable on the dangers of religious indoctrination.

© James Travers 2010

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