The Devils is the first film that really made me envision the power of cinema. Opening the Brunswick Underground Film Festival at the Balam Balam Place, Ken Russell’s 1971 film was screened in glorious 4K. It’s a film so controversial it was apparently banned in Finland until 2001. It was an honour to take in all its darkly comic glory. 

We were seated in a small activity room, with free seating on folding chairs, which were not ideal. Being one of those vertically challenged folks, I often had to scoot and fidget to maintain constant eye contact with the screen. Subtitles would’ve been a godsend because occasionally dialogue was mumbled and lost, but I made it through okay. I tend to not like films that make me desire taking a basic lip reading course, but at the end of the night I was fully satisfied. It’s an underground film festival. What did you expect? Lavish sofas and champagne poured by a vaguely French and slightly condescending waiter?

The Devils has everything that would interest an arts freak with religious issues like myself. For the moviegoer desiring critiques of Catholicism and power, sexual repression, black humour and a starkly simple colour palette that would reduce Wes Anderson to a quivering mess: this is for you. While lacking the intricacies of Anderson’s dollhouse sets, there is no denying that Russell’s scenes uphold a standard of mystique and simplicity that I, a humble capeshit filmbro, have never quite seen. I’m no colour theorist, but the way shades of black and white are used in this movie are so beautifully striking. At times they are the only colours onscreen, making the sprinklings of exposed flesh pop. In one scene everyone is dressed in black, white, and shades of grey, with only the Pope decked out in resplendent, marvellous crimson. 

The plot itself is a little convoluted, which makes the need for subtitles even more pressing. There’s a lot of betrayal, intrigue, political manoeuvrings, gossiping, and so on, but one does often lose the exact thread of things because of the muffled dialogue. Geopolitics and verbal battles have a somewhat diminished impact as a result. Visually the film was astounding, not so much in terms of scale but in terms of the character seeping into every scene. 

I found Vanessa Redgrave’s performance as Sister Jean de Anges the most compelling part of the movie. A woman riddled with guilt about her sexual impulses, made iconic with a hunch, head tilting as if following the trajectory of a ski stunt gone wrong. She screams and prays, clutching her rosary with knuckle-clenching feverish fervour. 

The Devils is beautiful; it’s always fun to watch Catholic trauma play out.