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Devils, the
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| A macabre tale of religious mania, power, lust, possession | |
|  | This movie, partly based on The Devils Of Loudon, by Aldous Huxley [author of Brave New World, Brave New World Revisited, among others] features Oliver Reed, as an indiscreet priest, doing very unpriestly things with a young daughter of a nobleman, and Vanessa Redgrave as a demented nun. It centres [centers] around the "possession", supposedly, of a town, and the convent in Loudon, after the religious wars of the 1630s.
Moderately acted, a few familiar faces appear in the movie (i.e., to viewers of British films and television); including Dudley Sutton [Tinker in the Lovejoy mysteries and John Woodvine, who appeared in the "Armageddon Factor" in the Dr. Who series]. After the Protestant/Catholic religious wars are over, a new priest, Reed, comes in and has his way with a young lady [which later comes back to serve as the basis for his trial]. Vanessa Redgrave, as the aforementioned demented nun, has a lustful fantasy about the priest, very unnunlike. Along the way, a power hungry cardinal seeks to gain the favo[u]r of the king, and to destroy the town of Loudon, and the walls of the city. There are several representations (or misrepresentations some might say) of figures of the church, the royalty of the time(s), and others. Russell's twisted vision paints a dark, horrific, and unfavo[u]rable time in religious history that's hard, though fascinating, to watch. With a few "naughty bits", i.e., unclothed nuns, unnatural couplings, and general hypocrisy, it paints a disturbing vision of religious mania that serves as a chilling portrait of what power, corruption, lust, greed, and a multitude of other "sins" can evoke as it turns "religious", so-called, people into "Devils". Not for the squeamish, or easily offended, i.e., religiously speaking. Particularly for Catholics, like me, this movie shows that the "Church" had its own dark moments, not only in its persecution of "separated bretheren", i.e., the Protestants, but in the use of "religion", to justify a multitude of wrongs, committed in God's name. Heaven help us all.
| | DVD edition of 'The Devils' MUST be released!!!!! | |
| | 'The Devils', "one of the most controversial films ever made in the UK," is not only Ken Russell's BEST film, but probably the most IMPORTANT religious commentary ever put onto film (thanks to the glorious union of Aldous Huxley & Ken Russell). Although you can purchase the widescreen, least censored, Maverick Directors series, UK version (PAL VHS) from www.amazon.co.uk (ASIN: B00004CUX5, Catalogue Number: S015401) -- where the heck is the director approved DVD edition of this film, already???!!! This is an outrage to the film appreciation community, and especially to Ken Russell fans (who have the availability of almost every other Ken Russell film EXCEPT 'The Devils', arguably his VERY BEST, on DVD)!! Every rational reviewer of this film cries the same thing (hello, Warner Brothers!) -- consumers WANT a director approved DVD edition of 'The Devils' (NOT the butchered, US version), including Flim Four's 'Hell on Earth', "an hour-long documentary presented by Mark Kermode on Ken Russell's 1971 film" PLEASE, ALREADY!!!
| | Blame the transfer, not the movie! | |
| | I wish people would stop criticising the photography in The Devils. The photography is superb. Unfortunately, when The Devils first appeared on VHS, it suffered the double insult of being released in the censored American version, rather than the full UK print, in a completely hideous transfer which looked as if someone had filmed it off the TV with a camcorder. In the UK, the full version of the film was finally released in a decent print in 1997 in the Maverick Directors series. However, Warners will not release this version of the the film in the States. The Devils was being prepared for DVD release in Europe, with audio commentaries by Ken Russell and Vanessa Redgrave. However, it seems that Warner has postponed the DVD indefinitely. Why are they so determined to sabotage this film?
| | I don't want to return my copy, I'd rather burn it! | |
| | I obtained a VHS copy of this film through special order with a nearby video store. After seeing this, I easily determined why the retailer didn't keep any copies in inventory. After reading some of the reviews submitted by British viewers, I found out the version available in the United States is shorter and more heavily expurgated than the video for sale across the pond in the United Kingdom. If this is true, then I'll tell you the version I saw has to be the worst example of film editing of all time. The photography is lousy and the story is so fragmented and discontinuous thereby making it difficult to follow and understand. There has to be an allowance for overacting in an historical film; this movie is by no means immune to that tendency. I discovered later this film is based on a literary work by the late Aldous Huxley. I have seen some similarities of this film to Huxley's most famous novel, "Brave New World". If anything in cinema can be made and shown to the public these days, then why hasn't someone produced a picture based on this work? If they ever make a film based on "Brave New World", I'd want to see it.
| | | I love this story but I still feel as if it has yet to be told in the way it deserves. Oliver Reed is the perfect choice to play the doomed Father Grandier but Director Ken Russell seems to constantly make choices to alienate his viewers. He opens on maggots falling out of a dead corpse displayed over the city gates (which I wouldn't fault on its own) but he then goes on to present some characters as surreal circus-like clowns and blast obnoxious music to the point where the actors must shout to be heard, all the while choosing sexual/blasphemous imagery meant to shock and offend.
It would've been much more interesting to allow THE STORY to shock and offend with its church/state corruption, sexual repression, and grotesque methods of exorcism and executions. That should have been enough but Russell comes off with all the skill of a child poking a dead, rotting animal with a stick. This is not really how I like being "challenged" by a filmmaker.I read Huxley's book on which the film is based and still feel like Grandier's story has yet to be really told: Huxley's own theories and opinions on faith and the supernatural, which interrupt in long blocks throughout the book, become dull and tiresome after a while. Maybe there will be another try at filming this story.
There should be.
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