The Devils

Movie directed by Ken Russell and starring Oliver Reed and Vanessa Redgrave, based on The Devils of Loudoun by Aldous Huxley. Famously controversial and slated by the Evening Standard's Alex Walker, the 1971 film was shown uncut last night on TV. It's a story of the self governing city of Loudoun in 17th Century France and it's chief protector Father Grandier (Reed) and the desire of power hungry Cardinal Richelieu to destroy it. First of all, unsuccessfully with unofficial political means, then with more success with corrupt religious means, with the (unintentional?) help of deformed nun, Sister Jeanne (Redgrave). It is part horror, part political drama, part romance and part black comedy, but it's also less that the sum of those parts. Reed is brilliant throughout. Powerful, passionate and pondering. Like all great screen actor, the scenes just draw in around him. He is the focus of every shot, but the problem is he's not in all the scenes epecially not in the black comedy and the horror. Witness him rage when he stops the destruction of the city walls and defending himself in the mock court. The tenderness of debate when justifying the marriage of priests and the theory that love of women will bring him closer to god. Any scene without Reed loses impact. The over elaborately dressed and overtly camp King Louis XIII shooting a protestant in a crow costume (huh?), the prince riding into a church filled with crazy nuns with a false vial of Christ blood (it's a big joke, ho ho) all sit uneasily with barber shoving big metal syringes up Sister Jeanne's vagina in a public "scientific" exorcist, and another zealous doctor putting a hornet on another woman's nipple. The whole middle quarter without Reed is excessive. Excess for excess sake. But the movie picks up for the final 15 minutes for the denumount when Reed does return, to shout, contemplate, have is legs smashed between wooden blocks and his skin blacken and burn and blister in fire.

I did enjoy the movie (as someone once said to me, enjoy the bits you like and ignore the bit you didn't), Redgrave is also great as a crazy possessed nun. I liked the politics and romance. It's lost controversy for modern non believers (does half naked nuns running around a church offend you?). The only film I can think of comparing it to is The Wicker Man (another film that, in part, I couldn't take seriously especially the pagan scenes) but it is better that than. More intelliegent, more deep and more Reed.