Film at OKCMOA: The Devil, Probably
French Film The Devil, Probably at OKCMOA
A searing send-up of post-’68 France—and perhaps Robert Bresson’s most explicitly political film—The Devil, Probably tells the story of Charles, a young Parisian who tries and fails to find comfort where his contemporaries do: love, religion, activism, consumerism, drug use, and psychoanalysis. Presented in a new 4K restoration, it screens as part of Museum Films' "Late Bresson" series.
In French with English subtitles. (95 minutes)
“Constructed as a flashback from news reports of a young man’s suspicious suicide, Robert Bresson’s splenetic 1977 drama puts the post-1968 world on trial and judges it unlivable. Bresson’s chilling visions of daily life—including a brilliant sequence aboard a bus that depicts the mechanical world as a horror—suggest its hostility to the passions of youth. The film, however, offers a near-parody of the tamped-down spiritual universe of Bresson’s earlier work: these children of the revolution tremble with uncertainty, and their loose gestures and shambling ways conflict with his precise images. Both the world and Bresson’s cinema are in disarray, and the signs of his inner conflict are deeply troubling and tremendously moving.” – Richard Brody, The New Yorker
