DEVIL’S BATH, THE (DES TEUFELS BAD)
(directors/writers: Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala; cinematographer: Martin Gschlacht; editor: Michael Palm; music: Soap & Skin, Anja Plaschg; cast: Anja Plaschg (Agnes), Maria Hofstatter (Mother-in-Law Gänglin), David Scheid (Wolf), Natalija Baranova (Ewa Schikin); Runtime: 121; MPAA Rating: NR; producer: Ulrich Seidl; Shudder; 2024-Austria/Germany-in German with English subtitles)
“An unsettling and grim psychological character study of a woman driven nuts and to suicide because of religious repression in 18th century rural Austria.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
An unsettling and grim psychological character study of a woman driven nuts and to suicide because of religious repression in 18th century rural Austria. It’s obsessively written and directed by the regular duo of Austrian filmmakers, Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala (“Goodnight Mommy”/”Kern”).
It offers the following quote “As my troubles left me weary of this life, it came to me to commit a murder.” The sad quote offers a compass to the direction of the story and how dark a period that was for women, as recorded in historical records.
In 1750, in Upper Austria, a woman’s life in the farm community is depicted as a miserable one. The many suicidal women in the rural woodsy area would often prefer to murder someone than to take their own life. The pic takes a jab at religion by saying suicide bans you from the church with eternal damnation while murder offers you a chance to confess and at least have a chance for forgiveness.
A religious young woman named Agnes (Anja Plaschg) marries and moves into an isolated fishing community, where she’s faced with living out a dreary life with a detached and passionless husband, Wolf (David Scheid), with a critical and bitchy mother-in-law, Ganglin (Maria Hofstatter), and dealing with her own poor mental health.
The film is anchored by the soulful performance of Plaschg and the eerie music from her as the musician known as Soap & Skin.
The title refers to mental illness, with a term used in the 18th century.
It’s a depressing film about how hopeless it is to live in an intolerant society, where being a murderer rates higher in the Christian church than someone who takes their own life. Shockingly these same superstitious beliefs exist today.
It played at the Berlin Film Festival.
REVIEWED ON 3/8/2024 GRADE: B-