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    The Devils

    Reviewed by
    pietroantoni@

    I would hardly categorize this as a horror film. Doing so is an absurdity as I will try to explain. First of all, the events depicted in the movie are from an Aldous Huxley story and eventual play whose events are very TRUE though from an age very removed from the 21st century. In the hands of Ken Russell, the excess makes it all look fairly unreal. In any case, the action which revolves a great deal around religion and witchcraft remains quite scandalous even to this day... and I would go so far as to say that in the hands of Russell, it turns quite blasphemous. Yet, I was glued to my seat at times in a rage as to what was happening. It is sensational, but I disagree with the previous reviewer who I don't think had a very firm grasp of the material putting everything down to the nature of Ken Russell. Vanessa Vedgrave as Mother Superior and Oliver Reed as the priest, historical figures, make you almost shrink back in horror (not in the movie sense) as to what was or might have been been happening in their mind, soul... and more, especially with Mother Superior Redgrave. I still stick to my guns that this IS NOT A HORROR FILM. Think of the CRUCIBLE and then magnify it 100 times over and you still won't get the diabolical impact of The Devils. What one might consider horror, are all facts that were commonplace and took place on a daily basis back then, even the most gruesome of events. A terrifying look at religious life of the period. Frankly I was shocked when first I saw Devils at 20. With eighteen years having passed and wanting to relive The Devils, I was, nonetheless, still scandalized. The conclusion is one that can't be forgotten.

    A point must be made of Ken Russell that no matter what he tackled in film, theatre or opera... even the musical TOMMY, he always worked in a obssessive way, heightening sometimes what was was quite normal and ordinary into a melée of the most outrageous nature. His film on Tchaikovsky with Glenda Jackson and Richard Chamberlain ( as husband and wife), for example, went so far beyond the limits especially in terms of Tchaikovsky's abhorrence with female sex ( he was a homosexual) that critics and public were outraged. But that was the nature of Ken Russell, larger than life... even on the screen!

    8
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    pietroantoni@  18.5.2015 age: 36-49 14,540 reviews

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