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This film is an excellent protrayal of the duplicity, the cynical use of religious phenomena for political purposes prevalent in Europe. The furor when it was released was stimulated by the strong hold the Church still maintained in the Twentieth Century. This was contemporary with the harassment of Lenny Bruce in the US. | | LOG IN TO COMMENT ON THIS REVIEW! |
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Dark and brooding witchhunt flick bubbling over with dramatic tension and sexual energy. The sets and costumes are gorgeous, too--plus naked nuns! | | LOG IN TO COMMENT ON THIS REVIEW! |
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Ken Russel at his bizarre best. This is a great classic film with excellent performances by Oliver Reed and Vanessa Redgrave with enough weirdness and nudity to satisfy anyone. | | LOG IN TO COMMENT ON THIS REVIEW! |
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The scene of the film is like in theater, the interpretation of actors is strong, high merit for Ken Russell's daring in making this film. I saw the film in '73 but it was cut--luxembourg being a vera Catholic country. I travelled to France to see the location. The church of grandier has been dis-sacred and is now the market place of the town, offering vegetables, cheese, etc. Witness this sad story. | | LOG IN TO COMMENT ON THIS REVIEW! |
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| In 1971 Ken Russell achieved what must be the most scathing attack against religious and sexual repression ever put to celluloid. Treating religion as a purely political rather than a moral or ethical force, he created a film that has more than stood the test of time. Russell shocked the popular historical fairytale view of the time out of its bare-faced complacency and gave it a more contemporary relevance. A hugely controversial film, "The Devils" went from director to censor and back again several times before a mutually agreeable final cut was approved. The head of the British Censors resigned shortly after release. Certain right wing Christian morons and guardians of public decency in the UK (namely Mary Whitehouse, may she burn in the abysmal fires for eternity with her Festival of Light sheep), wanted to completely ban the movie outright. They did not succeed. As for the cast, well Oliver Reed gives the performance of his life as Priest Urbain Grandier who submits to his own earthly desires. Vanessa Redgrave is superb as the deformed, sexually frustrated Mother Superior who has designs on Grandier. She is used by those in what authority there is to implicate an innocent man in a chaotic trial of heresy, witchcraft, and demonic association. The direction, cinematography, set design, costumes, script, and score are all excellent. "The Devils" displays the work of a director at the height of his creative ambitions and is a scathing document of a wholly absurd piece of European history. |
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"The Devils of Loudon" is a classic film and a must-see. Oliver Reed's performance is deep and pensive. It has many messages for today's power struggles not least Vanessa Redgrave's final betrayal. It is a shame Warner Bros (?) have not yet re-released the actual print - when I saw this in the cinema decades ago it was a true screen spectacular. Aldous Huxley's book gives the full background and a visit to Loudon in France sllows you to play "Spot the wall". Thank you HKFlix - you seem to be the only place in the world where you can easily get hold of this title! | | LOG IN TO COMMENT ON THIS REVIEW! |
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The grandpappy of nunsploitation, even before the phrase was coined. This film was universally damned for its sex and religion theme, even though the events are historical. It is one thing to READ about nuns and commoners throwing themselves into orgiastic frenzy - another thing entirely to SEE it. This is one of the first naked nun movies I've seen where I was not interested solely in the "naked" nuns. They were merely a backdrop to the horror that man can commit to man in the name of the "almighty" and just more evidence in the case against state and religion mingling. In this film, unlike almost every other of its ilk, the nun's nudity and sexual revelry are for a reason that is easily understood. That makes it less "exploitative" and more storytelling. | | LOG IN TO COMMENT ON THIS REVIEW! |
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One of my favorite films. I don't agree with the genre critics place this film in. It's a historical drama. It shows clearly the hypocrisy of the Catholic church. | | LOG IN TO COMMENT ON THIS REVIEW! |
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I read a lot reviews about this movie for being controversial, I'm a very big fan of controversial movies, exploitation films. This is the best movie I've ever sees, because it speak to a lot people about the dark side, the bad side of the Catholic church (not all). I hope you have the same opinion about this movie. | | LOG IN TO COMMENT ON THIS REVIEW! |
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