The Devils

Writing a review for a film as outlandish as The Devils while still remaining within IMDb's guidelines is proving very difficult: when describing the film, it's hard to avoid phrases that will offend - it's THAT eccentric, anarchic, and blasphemous. Controversial director Ken Russell's work is clearly still capable of pushing buttons after all of these years.

Oliver Reed stars as womanising priest Urbain Grandier, the actor putting in a commanding turn that cannot be ignored, scandalous at first, but ultimately admirable for his stoicism and the purity of his love for Madeleine De Brou (Gemma Jones); on the other end of the scale is Father Pierre Barre (Michael Gothard), a character with no redeeming qualities, a loathsome witch-hunter tasked with proving Grandier guilty of heresy so that power-hungry Cardinal Richelieu (Christopher Logue) can take control of the town of Loudun.

Chock full of visually stunning and often provocative imagery, The Devils, based on a book by Aldous Huxley, is an assault on the senses that is hard to forget. It's not at all surprising that the film was heavily criticised on its release for its semi-pornographic content, nightmarish grotesquery, and general debauchery, but for all of its deliberate shock tactics, there's a great story to be told and it is done so in a stylish and unforgettable manner.

Even when the film isn't being deliberately offensive, it's still an audacious treat: Russell opens with a preposterous scene in which Louis XIII (Graham Armitage) participates in a comically absurd play (the King of France dressed as Botticelli's Venus); Grandier uses a stuffed crocodile to fight Trincant (John Woodvine), father of one of the priest's conquests; King Louis playfully shoots protestants dressed as crows; and Vanessa Redgrave is delightfully OTT as Sister Jeanne, the nun whose unrequited obsession over Grandier leads to his downfall. In keeping with the film's unconventionality, the set design by Derek Jarman -- medieval meets futurism -- is blatantly anachronistic, but a marvel to behold.