The Mechanics of The Devils; The Mechanics of the Rise of Fascism

I cannot guarantee there won’t be spoilers in this. Which is a shame because I cannot press upon you enough how great a movie this is, yet I’m not sure many people have seen, or even heard of, The Devils.

It is a masterpiece of corruption, gaslighting, and the machinations the powerful use to get the outcomes they desire. With our western worlds slipping into, or already consumed by, fascism, this is a movie that reveals quite clearly how fascism is allowed to take hold.

It’s a very straight forward story, yet it is also deep. It was written by Russell, who based it on Huxley’s non-fiction book as well as other historical accounts, so I assume much of the depth to the story comes from those other sources, with Russell simply embellishing the accounts he had in front of him. I suppose this film is Russell’s way of telling the story. The result is one of the greatest movies ever made.

Discomfort

The Devils is an uncomfortable watch, all the way through, from the pseudo-science torture of the medical practitioners, to the forced enemas, to the stripping of nuns, to the brutal torture at the end. It’s a movie that shows the very real depravity of the church, how innocent people were accused of witchcraft, tortured and burned. And it was all done for political reasons.

As much as Russell’s film style is extravagant and fantastical, the film is based on a historically documented occurrence. It happened – perhaps not like how Russell depicts it, but perhaps, yes, exactly how he depicts it. When explaining the awful persecutions of history, why not show it as a circus of hysteria, of misguided faith and sadism? The over the top nature of Russell’s film making only works to make it feel more real.

Like Apocalypse Now, The Devils slips immediately into a kind of surreal world. This occurs right from the start thus immediately instructing the audience to suspend disbelief and be more susceptible to what is about to come, and the surrealism continues all the way through. Both movies use a surrealistic approach to depict very real human atrocities. The Devils is a seventh century Apocalypse Now.

Nun-dity

The film has always been controversial, with severe censorship from the beginning. The cut I own is not the complete cut, although I don’t think the film needs more scenes and more footage. One scene that is censored from my version is the nuns rubbing themselves against a statue of Christ on the cross, and another scene of Sister Agnes using a charred bone to masturbate. These scenes sound to me like they are primarily there to shock or offend, and I’m not sure it matters they’re not in my version.

There is a bit of nudity in the film and this is also part of the general discomfort of it, with women having to perform naked in rooms full of clothed men. The extras I watched spoke of the difficulties some of the women had with having to do the nude scenes. So these scenes are all the more impressive because the women perform their frenzied abandon so convincingly.

Flawed Hero

This movie is about a witch trial, but the character accused of witchcraft is a priest. It’s an interesting touch that this film has a flawed hero. Grandier is revealed at the beginning to be a womaniser and a selfish piece of shit. He is quite unpleasant, but not far into the film, he is also revealed to be a powerful leader and the only person who stands in the way of the fortified walls of Loudun being torn down.

This is a tale of the Catholic church and Huguenots, and while Huguenots certainly played their part in history of oppression and colonialism, in this movie they are presented as the free, or perhaps libertarians, in opposition to the fascism and authoritarianism of the Catholic church. It is a story of decentralised fortifications being attacked and brought to rule under a centralised state and church. In that sense it is very much the Fediverse versus Meta.

So we are presented with a a callous egoist who is also a powerful political figure and hero. The film doesn’t try to get you to like the character as such. He is what he is, and that’s all you need to know. Like the so called greats in history, he is in no way perfect. But by presenting the viewer with a loathsome figure we are asked to question what it means to be a hero, and how we can – and sometimes should – overlook a person’s transgressions for the sake of something more important. He is a loathsome figure, but even so, we can all see that he doesn’t deserve all the things that happen to him. So by using a loathsome figure, there’s a subtle asserting of justice and fair punishment that is not explicitly stated, but is there nonetheless.

His loathsomeness also does two other things storywise: One, it provides a reason for the state and church to attack him; and two, it helps to give gravity to his seeming change of heart when he falls in love. Ironically – or perhaps not so – he is probably one of the only true believers of his faith in the entire film.

Anachronisms

One thing I love about Ken Russell films is how he injects subtle anachronisms into them. This is an intentional device to draw historical action into the present. An actual citadel a Loudun was built to shoot this movie, but the architecture is considerably Modern with stark white facades and solid, but powerful looking towers, akin to the neoclassicism beloved by the Nazis. The design is has the aesthetic of a public toilet, in reference to a comment about Sister Agnes’s ordeal in Huxley’s book. But it is also distinctly fascist, and the imagery does not stop there. There is also an improbably tall doorway in one scene, studded with bolts and adorned with a tall red cross.

The anachronisms never look out of place, but subtly jar and nudge you into questioning what you’re seeing. The exorcist priest appears like a rock star, long-haired and eventually bare-chested. There are strange contraptions that seem out of place, but look like they could be real medical devices of the time. They all work to heighten the hysteria; to prod you and unsettle you, and help make the worst of it seems so very real.

Fash-lighting

What allows the events in the story to make sense is how people’s situations are often imposed upon them unwillingly, just like a person’s class is imposed on them from birth. The nuns are revealed to be women from well off backgrounds, who were forced into the sisterhood because their families couldn’t afford dowries. Sister Agnes is disfigured from birth and ended up in the sisterhood because no one would marry her. So these are women forced into celibacy and their frustration is one of the influences that create and uphold the accusations against Grandier.

What is also so brilliantly done is when the accusations of doing the devil’s bidding are made, everyone can see there is nothing in them, that they are ramblings of a frustrated nun. But it is the initial, clearly fabricated assertion, that is enough to set the ball rolling. The narrative then takes this lie and prods and pokes it until it becomes the undeniable truth – at least, true enough to bring about the desired outcome.

Sister Agnes eventually changes her statement, and admits she has wronged an innocent man. But her confession is regarded as a lie and the accusations continue unabated. This is a world where lies are the truth and the truth is a lie.

One of the best villains is Laubardemont. He is the first to point out the accusations against Grandier are baseless and he is one of the key reveals to the viewer that most people know the accusations are entirely baseless. Laubardemont is smug to the very end, having achieved what he set out to achieve. The people he uses to get there are cast aside, irrelevant. This is how fascism works, this is how tyrants behave. He has father Mignon put in an asylum for claiming that Grandier was innocent, but adds that Grandier didn’t sign a confession, so everyone else also thinks he was innocent too.

Perhaps some characters do believe in the accusations, having convinced themselves. Perhaps what is being depicted is a kind of mass hysteria where people pretending to believe continually nudges others into fully believing, until most people actually believe. Or think they do.

One key moment, which draws heavily on witch hunt logic, is when all the nuns from the sisterhood are placed in a pit, ready to be executed. The only thing that can save them is if they claim their actions were not their own, that they were unwillingly doing the Devil’s bidding. They are literally given the choice of death or admit they were possessed by devils – and in which case they won’t be punished.

By confessing to possession, they save their own lives and add credence to the accusation, but once the accusation is made against Grandier, if the women go back on their word they will face prosecution – being condemn in both this life and the next. So they have no choice but to continue the charade.

Throughout the movie, we are shown little tells that reveal many people know the possession accusation to be a fabrication, and perhaps to make sure everyone watching is convinced it is all a hoax, there is one moment where the king himself appears in disguise and presents a box containing the dried blood of Christ. The box is held up and the possessed nuns all collapse as the devils within them flee in fear.

The box then is revealed to be empty, thus this little stunt provides more than enough evidence to prove the fraudulence of the whole thing. However, this has absolutely no effect on the situation. Caught in a lie, they can only double down on the lie, and the accusations and possessions become more frenzied.

At the very end father Mignon demands Grandier confesses to the supposed crimes, probably more to relieve his own conscious than needing to save Grandier’s soul. It is at this moment Grandier is presented as a true believer, someone who will die for his faith – a Christian martyr. He is shown to be the very thing the church is trying to destroy.

Truth is the enemy of power

Creep of Fascism

The world being politically the way it currently is, when I rewatched The Devils, I was struck at how relevant it was. The lies and deception for political gain fits with so many modern day occurrences. I was reminded of Corbyn and the accusations of anti-Jewish racism, fuelled mostly by Israel and Israeli lobbyists, which helped to hinder his leadership of the Labour Party and to help destroy his chances of winning an election. The anti-Jewish accusations were initially pitched as a problem within the party, but soon turned into strong hints that Corbyn was an anti-Jewish racist. Now, it is more or less referred to by journalists as if it is an undeniable fact he is an anti-Jewish racist. From initial unfounded claims, it is now the truth – at least among the corporate media ghouls.

I’m a firm believer that much of the world’s current walk to fascism is through a drive for corporate hegemony. And The Devils shows this has always been the case, whether it’s the church or state or corporate executives driving for absolute power. Whatever is detrimental to power needs to be removed as an obstacle. Once, the supernatural could be used for political gain, now, with advances in science and knowledge, other tricks of manipulation are used.

First we have the removal of laws, red tape, to remove obstacles and open up opportunities for profit. Then those who speak out against it become inconvenient, so their voices must be suppressed. So institutions and government departments are destroyed to remove the apparatus people need to object. Then it become a criminal offence to speak out against oil or war or or genocide or ecocide or the harvesting of personal data or anything else that yields obscene profits. This is all currently happening in the US and Europe; it is also what happens in The Devils.

There’s no one in the driving wheel, just executives and companies determined to make money, lobbying and paying politicians and controlling the narrative through their media outlets, and finding every possible way to do it. It’s a steady creep, but eventually we end up with people powerless, people silenced, and our liberties severed. And ordinary people? Their narrative is already controlled. They might not even be aware of the severity of what’s going on. So they just watch it happen, unchallenged.

The Devils brilliantly and impressively walks us through this stepping-stone logic. A thing that starts from nothing at all, leading all the way to wild hysteria and abandon. It makes so much sense, and feels so very real. If you want to understand the rise of fascism, watch The Devils.

Over and out for now, guys!

xxx