The Devils
The long-awaited restoration of Ken Russell’s cult classic about sexual repression and religious persecution. Banned or heavily censored in countless countries upon its release in 1971; now finally available to view in its definitive version.
‘An audaciously blunt fever-dream portrait of religious-inspired sexual hysteria’ – that is how the American online publication Slant Magazine describes The Devils. The film is based on a true story set in the French town of Loudun in 1634. Cardinal Richelieu has tightened his grip on France and seeks to dismantle the power of the towns. The womanising Father Urbain Grandier, the highest authority in Loudun, opposes this. To get rid of him, the Church makes use, among other things, of the testimony of Mother Superior Jeanne of the local Ursuline convent, who claims that Grandier is possessed by the devil.
Director Russell said that, with The Devils, he wanted to make a ‘true film about the horror and blasphemy that people inflict on their fellow human beings in the name of Jesus Christ’. However, he failed to convince the censors or Warner Bros. Russell was forced to cut or omit many scenes, and even then his film was not allowed to be screened everywhere. It is, incidentally, not entirely incomprehensible that there were concerns about the well-being of the cinema-going public. The Devils features loads of copulation, masturbation and torture; the sexual urges and orgies know no bounds. This film, exuberant in every respect, will lead to, to quote Slant Magazine once more, ‘sensory overload’ for many viewers.
Written by JC