There are those films that you simply have got to see, films for which you have waited in anticipation for months, even years, films that can't possibly disappoint you. For me, every new film by either Darren Aronofsky or David Cronenberg is an immediate must-see. It doesn't matter if the film gets panned by every possible critic or if it gets booed by every single festival-goer in the world. I will still be there on opening night with a ticket in my hand and a large smile on my face. But then, there are those films that you know you are going to hate, films for which the most reliable critics award 1 star or no stars at all, films tagged with such enticing epithets as "dull", "vain", or worst, "moralistic". These films can entice you just as much for you often end up convincing yourself that they can't possibly be as bad as people say they are. The worst the reviews, the greater the curiosity, which is precisely what drove me toward Devil. Personally, I think that the general hatred that has been directed at M. Night Shyamalan in recent years is wholly unjustified. Hell, The Happening (2008) wasn't so bad. At least, it wasn't nearly as bad as people described it. So I thought maybe, just maybe, Devil could prove itself to be a happy surprise. Truth is, I didn't really believe it. And although I wasn't completely pissed off with the film, I must say that it is every bit as bad as the most virulent critics said.
The premise of Devil is intriguing. Handled differently, it could've resulted in a worthy film. The main plotline takes place almost entirely in camera as five "sinners" are trapped in an elevator wherein the Devil lurks, disguised as a human and hellbent on torturing his carefully-selected victims prior to dragging their souls to the Lake of Fire. This would be a fine set-up if psychological insight had been used to characterize the cunning outsider and to forward the narrative instead of crude morality, which drives and hampers the film at the same time. But none is so lucky as to find an inkling of subtlety in this film. The subplot involves a disillusioned police detective slowly recovering from the murder of his wife and child as well as a handful of supporting characters, each more expandable than the last, all of them watching helplessly as the prisoners are offed one by one. Just like every other character in the film, the detective is a mere symbol pertaining to a moral lesson. Narratively, he is purely instrumental, being just competent enough to gather intel that merely validates what the voice-over has made abundantly clear, namely that the entrapped characters are all guilty of a crime punishable by the Devil, while at the same time being just incompetent enough to misinterpret a detail and thus validate the atrocious twist pertaining to the Devil's identity. In the end, what the film teaches you is that, like the characters in the film, humans are mere pawns in a game of chess between God and the Devil. And the only thing we can do to save our souls is abide by God's laws. Contrarily to the apparent mandate of The Night Chronicles (of which Devil is the first of three chapters), which is to set supernatural thrillers in contemporary urban milieux, what we have here is a dated moral fable that would feel more at home in illuminated Medieval tomes.
Only by abiding to God's laws can we set the world straight
Where to begin? What's the single worst thing about Devil? Is it the annoying voice-over that explicitly foreshadows every event in the film, rendering all narrative development useless? Is it the constant recourse to divine intervention as a way to instantly justify any logical implausibility? Is it the voluntary slimming of narrative possibilities imposed by the main set? Is it the film's infuriating sense of morality? The atrocious twist ending? The erratic pace? The suspiciously lenient PG-13 rating? Honestly, I find it hard to summarize my complaints about this film. It seems that nothing is worthy of any praise here but the decent production values. Narratively, Devil is more than anemic, it is completely self-defeating. There is no real suspense to speak of, but tiny little bits thereof intercut with lengthy and entirely useless scenes of dreary police investigation. Not only is the film suffocatingly moralistic, but its very morality is highly dubious in nature. As for the ending, it merely pushes the film an extra mile down the narrow pit in which it started falling from frame one.
Speaking of frame one, you couldn't do worse in terms of see-through symbolism. This frame shows the skyline of downtime Philadelphia but in reverse. Actually, the entire credits are made up of skyscrapers pointing toward the ground, illustrating how our modern society is corrupt and hell-bound. But despite all this, despite the generalized decay of the moral fabric of society, only five people will be punished for it, five people selected to cover the entire range of crimes against God: the thief, the whore, the liar, the brute and the murderer. And although it would seem unfair to torture five sinners in a place where sin is endemic, simply consider this: God works in mysterious ways, that is by allowing the five sacrificial victims to get trapped in an elevator and be picked off one by one by the Devil. Personally, I believe that the existence of the Devil doesn't prove the existence of God, but rather disproves it, as do all forms of non-human evil. Metaphysics aside, divinities here have complete control over the narrative, and this gives ample justification for the screenwriters to revel in their apathy. You see, it is the Devil who has trapped the five sinners and it is He who decides their fate in accordance with the folktale narrated during the opening voice-over. Everything is written in advance and thus, the trials and tribulations of the firemen and detectives trying to rescue them are completely meaningless. What's worse is that the film explicitly insists on the meaninglessness of their actions. By constantly resorting to dreary voice-overs exposing the Devil's omnipotence, the screenwriters effectively defuse every plot point and every set piece they have toiled to create. There is a scene in which firemen are brought in to try and force the elevator doors and saw through the concrete walls surrounding the shaft. And right when they begin to set up, we are informed by "God's voice" (voice-over narration) that the Devil will never allow force to undermine his plans. So, we immediately know for a fact that the firemen's actions are useless. No suspense, no guessing, no sense either in showing us lengthy scenes wherein they tear through concrete with large circular saws. No sense elsewhere than in exposing and insisting on the omnipotence of the Devil and his divine insight as to what constitutes crimes punishable by psychological torture and death. Narratively, this is incredibly convenient as there is no need to explain how a virtual army of policemen and firemen can fail to force open an elevator door, to rewire the electrical current or even slide down the wires in the shaft onto the top of the cabin. "The Devil" explains it all. Hence, narrative depth is not only needless, it is impossible. What results is an excruciatingly boring, self-spoiling film in which nothing is relevant but the dubious central moral that preaches repentance to purse-snatchers and murderers alike, leaving only the latter alive because they are able to shed more tears in the face of death.
Hopefully, I won't spoil any enjoyment you might hypothetically have in watching the film when I tell you that the murderer in the group is spared by the Devil at the last minute in a typically Shyamalan-esque twist that will have you tightening your fist and grinding your teeth. You see, the murderous character is the last one standing and he must thus face the Devil. The Dark One, characterized only by oil-black retinas, towers above him and announces both their imminent departure toward the pits of Hell, at which point the criminal suddenly becomes repentant, shedding tears and begging for forgiveness. When he finally confesses his crimes to the police over the C.B., the Devil has no other choice than to let him live for he has atoned and his soul is now cleansed of the burden of sin. As a viewer, the Devil's lenience is really hard to swallow since the murderer's "good deed" is strangely akin to a deathbed confession, i.e. one you make solely out of fear of dying. However "sincere" this confession may be, what worth can it possibly have considering the circumstances under which it was made? The worth it does have is strictly determined by supernatural forces, and thus the rule of law becomes irrelevant and so too become the higher human values of forgiveness, understanding and compassion. By giving the gods an unconditional moral superiority, the film ends up relegating humanity once more to the cavern of ignorance and helplessness wherein the preachers of orthodoxy would like their followers to remain till the end of days. According to the tagline, "bad things happen for a reason", but that kind of logic is very problematic as well because although I understand why criminals need to be confronted with their crimes, this presupposes divine interference in the affairs of men, whom have invented law and social sciences to insure a basic, non-moral understanding of criminality. More importantly though, it presupposes that the good samaritans killed in the process of judging the sinners are necessary casualties... which is bullshit! I mean, where was God when the elevator mechanic and aging security guard who selflessly tried to lend a hand met with horrible deaths? Honestly, it takes a seriously twisted person to pretend that "bad things happen for a reason", unless they're speaking of a purely extraterrestrial reason, such as the self-enjoyment of divinities who laugh at humans and restrict us to rigid codes of conduct without taking anything else than our most reproachable acts into consideration. For one, I believe that drama is born out of human emotions, deeply ingrained emotions which can seep through the screen, page or canvas and into the hearts of the viewers or readers. Christian morality has no place in any form of drama for it is entirely extraterrestrial and completely out of touch with the true emotional concerns of human beings. Trying to sort individuals according to their various degrees of decency is like trying to fit square pegs in round holes; it doesn't take into account the full gamut of human emotions and the many circumstances leading to crime. All in all, the recourse to divinity as an all-encompassing explanation for the events onscreen reveals not only the screenwriters' complacency and laziness, but also their contempt for the idea of humanity as a self-defining, willful and free race.
The Devil's omnipotence is the tube of Crazy glue that
holds the screenplay together like broken china
Being a whodunit at heart, Devil is also impaired by the restrictive elevator set. Let me just ask a question here: how do you manage to hide the identity of a killer whose crimes are committed within a few feet of five people? The answer is: you can't, at least not without using some very cheap narrative gymnastics pertaining also to the overwhelming influence of divinity within the scenario. You see, the Devil can do anything he pleases, least of which is to magically turn off the ceiling lights of an elevator. Yep, you read that correctly: right before every murder, the lights flicker and the cabin is suddenly plunged in darkness. Right before every murder. Then, you hear screams and muffled sounds meant to let you know that "something nasty is going on", the nature of which remains unclear until you witness the aftermath. Personally, I couldn't believe my eyes when I realized that this would be a recurring M.O.. I was left aghast by the screenwriters' lack of imagination. I mean, I'm not talking of a single occurrence here, I'm talking systematic lights out whenever a crime is about to take place. This only makes the narrative even more predictable and frankly dishonest toward the viewer, who should at least be given decent clues in order to try and decipher the mystery of the Devil's identity. What this brought me to realize is that it takes some really efficient writing, and some highly competent acting, to manage a successful thriller contained in camera, especially if it is a whodunit! It takes subtle psychological insight and a rare sense of mise-en-scène, which is found to be completely lacking here. By using the cheapest, most crude way of turning the five victims against one another, that is by piling up corpses killed in the most illogical, unpredictable ways possible, the screenwriters end up brushing away the most interesting aspects of the Devil's persona, namely his overwhelming power of suggestion and ruthless cunning. In order words, they could've had the Devil using his forked tongue in order to manipulate the characters toward murder. This would have added some much-needed psychological depth to the scenario and kept the action out in the open, instead of covering it up with convenient shadows, which would have further warranted the in camera setting. By instead choosing the Devil's omnipotence as his distinctive feature and using this feature to glue the entire narrative together, the screenwriters have chosen the easy way out, ruining the efficiency of psychological tension and making puppets out of all the human characters and human viewers assembled to watch helplessly as their fellowmen are tried and sentenced outside of all socially established norms and regulations. Again, Devil is not simply a lazy film, it is a deeply offensive film for anybody who believes in the freedom of the human spirit.
Devil is less of a psychological thriller than a whodunit,
which is why it falls flat on its face
If at least the action would've been kept within the boundaries of the cabin, without any cut to other locales and the meaningless actions occurring therein, the film could've at least managed to create some tension. But as it is, every time the tempers flare, every time you feel that something exciting is about to happen, the film cuts from inside the cabin to a shot of some people observing the scene. Tension is immediately defused at the profit of irrelevant exposition. And that's your cue, folks: it's time to get up, get another beer. No need to pause the film, just get up and walk slowly to the kitchen, open the fridge, maybe scratch your ass a bit, consider the contents of the fridge. Then you can take a peek in the pantry; maybe there are some leftover cereals in there. Oh yes! And don't forget the beer! Believe me, you're gonna need that beer... Of course, you can also turn off your DVD player and indulge in another activity, which is what I would recommend. Make love instead, read a book, clean the living room: use your imagination, which isn't something you will be able to achieve by watching Devil. Personally, when I first read the film's synopsis, I was convinced that the entrapment of the five characters would be the cornerstone of tension-building and narrative development. I hadn't even thought that there could be a police investigation tacked on or any form of meddling with the purity of the claustrophobic thriller, which needs to be self-sustained lest it risks losing all of its power. Here, the reason for the entrapment is made overly explicit and the characters are exposed from outside, making the crux of the narrative lie elsewhere than in the immediate environment of these characters. This completely undermines the sense of immediacy inherent to in camera narratives. For those who know the film Cube (1997), I propose the following analogy: what if the scenes wherein the characters in the cube discuss their fate were intercut with scenes outside the cube. What would that do for you? Would it lessen tension? Imagine worse. Imagine that there was a military man monitoring the activities within the cube, to whom the film would cut whenever tension rose too feverishly between the entrapped characters. What would that do for you? What if that military man would reveal the entire purpose of the cube within the opening voice-over? What if Leaven and company were revealed as a bunch of criminals punished by a higher moral authority? Any combination of such occurrences would ruin the film. And every time Devil cut from the elevator cabin to the control room, I felt I was watching Cube and its architect was suddenly revealed, at the thought of which I narrowly choked on an imaginary plastic button.
What if Cube had had a control room wherein Benthamian observers
could exchange platitudes while Quentin was brutalizing Worth?
Another thing that bugged me about the film is its rating. Why is the film rated PG-13 when it shows slashed throats, impaled jugulars, twisted heads, and burned-out faces whereas Clerks (1994) and Office Space (1999) get NC-17 and R ratings respectively for some naughty language and sexual references? Is this the fruit of God's intervention? Is God protecting Devil because it encourages sinners to confess? For one, I believe that God is truly at work here, manifesting Himself through his minions at the MPAA who would soon prefer exposing youths to violence, especially if that violence is warranted by a Christian moral, than to foul language, which risks turning them into rebellious teens liable to hurt God's ears with biting profanity. The most twisted aspect of such censorship is that it displays a dangerously anachronistic sense of morality. Whereas Devil merely preaches the olden principles of a religion completely out of synch with modernity, Clerks and Office Space both convey equally wholesome, but entirely more relevant messages about self-responsibility and about love. Their outlook on life is not a sterile affair of stagnant moral values, but rather a lively dialogue about what makes humans tick and how they can better themselves. If these films contain foul language and sexual allusions, it is precisely because sex and profanity are a crucial part of human existence. Hence, their protagonists are much more realistic than the boring, overdetermined archetypes from Devil and only as such are they able to convey relevant moral lessons applicable in everyday life. The muzzling of these films merely proves the outdated philosophy of Jack Valenti's obscurantist legions. Now, I know this rant to be futile, but then again, I won't miss an opportunity to point out how wacky the American rating system is and how maddening it is to see that the complaining power of American interest groups overwhelms even the most basic common sense.
Let me tell you a story that I find relevant in trying to explain my intrinsic opposition to the flawed morality of Devil. And believe me, this is no silly folktale. It's about my late grandfather, may he never be forgotten. He was a calm and generous man who never gave in to anger, instead accepting his ploy with resignation and philosophy, working hard to provide food and shelter for his seven children. My entire family loved him very dearly and we all share fond memories of him. Nobody loved the man more than we did. When I learned of his death, a sharp pain struck my heart like a dagger laced with venom and bitter tears rushed out my eyelids. Soon, there was a pool of salty sorrow inbetween my feet and I could barely formulate words without sobbing. I was vacationing in NYC at the time, and my grandfather had just died back in Joliette. I couldn't forgive myself for not being at his bedside when he passed on... and I never will forgive myself. There was so much I wanted to say to him, so many loving words with which I would've wanted to leave him... It was all a personal tragedy, and I still bear it like a scar on my heart. Needless to say, I cut my vacation short and bought the first ticket back home to Montreal. On my way to the bus station on 42nd street, I broke down in tears. I had to ride all the way from 128th to 42nd street sobbing, much to the disinterest of the crowd surrounding me. My pain was mine alone and although it was bathed in New York indifference, it felt very real and very immediate to me. Upon getting back to Montreal, I immediately got to working on some farewell words to say during the funerals. I wanted to insist on the memories that me and my cousins could share about my grandfather, making him out to be the pleasant, loving man that made all of our childhoods so bright and sunny. For me, the funeral was an occasion for my family to gather together in mourning and share the good memories we had about a great man because although he had vanished, he would still live in our hearts. This moment was meant for us, the living, imperfect people who felt pain and sorrow, people through which our patriarch could live forever. But then, during the eulogy, the despicable priest behind the pulpit, that lowly Catholic swindler who doesn't know the first thing about family comes in and tells us that our grandfather has "now joined his true family up in Heaven". What the fuck did he mean, "true family"? Weren't we, the people physically amassed in painful mourning his only true family? The priest could've spat in our faces and it wouldn't have been worse than the hateful crime he committed against all of us, living, breathing humans with the ability to feel love, pain, anger, sadness and despair, telling us we aren't true, but that the hazy concept of Heaven is! To this day, I still remember my grandfather vividly and I remember just as vividly the insult proffered by that priest on that day. The point of this story is to show just how religion tends to systematically dwarf humans emotions into nothingness by focusing on the overwhelming presence of sterile divinities. Which is precisely why Devil fails miserably in its bid to create affect. While I earlier deplored the lack of psychological finesse within the film, I now understand that it was never about psychology, nor was it about emotion, pain, sorrow, about, love, hate or guilt. Devil is not even about humanity. It is about divinity and its superiority to us. Devil is about omnipotent deities and human puppets with no choice but to follow, as sheep would. It pertains to the betterment of humanity only in its relationship with God. Thus, you will find that the film contains no actual dialogue between the characters as to what constitutes sin, and in what measure sin is punishable by death, and not by the justice system put in place by humans. Everything here is revealed through monologues, as if the characters were speaking not to their fellowmen, but to the Almighty Himself when they appraised the value of each others' lives. Hence, repentance and forgiveness herein exist only as absolute moral values, not as elements within a dialogue, which tends to sterilize any attempt at a true understanding of the very values foregrounded by the film. Gandhi once said "an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind", which is one of the great truths of this world. But to that, I would like to add: "eyeing only Heaven will make you blind to the whole world".
To conclude, I will not talk about Devil. I will simply cross the pond and marvel at a much more adult, more relevant film about repentance and forgiveness. That film is Andrea Arnold's Red Road (2006). Although prudes might argue otherwise, the two films are companion pieces. Both involve a killer who has killed in the same circumstances. Both involve a victim whose life is broken until bliss is found in forgiveness. Finally, both involve mystery and quiet observation within an investigative framework. But whereas the former film claims the omnipotence of absolute morality over sinful humans, the latter points out to the fragility, but overwhelming goodness of the human spirit. Although both films share the same basic message, one conveys it with the Medieval menace of fire and brimstone, while the other focuses on what's important, namely our lives on Earth, which we can all better if we stop and consider others for what they are, not for what they have done. If anything, Red Road is the perfect remedy to the poisonous Devil.
0,5/5 A self-defeating, narratively inept and terminally anachronistic moral fable that manages to insult both the viewer's intelligence and his dignity. If this is any indication of things to come, then you can already close the book on The Night Chronicles and Shyamalan's career.
