Frequently Bought Together
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Product details
|
Reviews
Product Description
Regarded by many as a masterpiece, Bresson's film tells the story of a young man living in Paris who desires more from life than the glib, superficial truths and material things that are on offer to him. He reaches out to his friends and psychiatrist to provide him with the great answers in life. But his spiritual deliverance remains beyond his grasp until he reaches a bizarre arrangement with a fellow drifter. Shot in his signature spare style, Bresson's penultimate work is as visionary, hyptonic and enduring as any of the films in his truly remarkable career.
Product Description
United Kingdom released, PAL/Region 2 DVD: LANGUAGES: French ( Mono ), English ( Subtitles ), SPECIAL FEATURES: Filmographies, Interactive Menu, Scene Access, SYNOPSIS: Charles drifts through politics, religion and psychoanalysis, rejecting them all. Once he realises the depth of his disgust with the moral and physical decline of the society he lives in, he decides that suicide is the only option... SCREENED/AWARDED AT: Berlin International Film Festival, ...The Devil Probably ( Le Diable probablement )
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
In The Devil Probably (1977) we follow Charles, young and alienated and probably searching for a meaning of life, or maybe he has given up on that. Like other Bresson movies like L'Argent, the actions and intentions of the protagonist is not always totally clear, at least not to me. Bresson does not give us an easy or mainstream story played by mainstream actors. Instead he gives us his vision of the world and society. Here he also uses what he calls "models" insetad of "actors", that is the actors are just to deliver the lines and not really act by displaying emotions and so on.
As I see it, Charles problem is not just as he says: that he sees things too clearly. That is, he sees all the bad stuff in the world and therefore can't find any meaning in anything: environmental pollution, the list of things you "have to do" like raising a family, education, work and so on makes him sick and bored near death. Charles is a slacker in the 1970s, and he refuses to contribute to the society he finds so rotten (but he clearly has no problem using others money). But clearly Charles also has got problems relating to other people. He finds himself "superior" and more intelligent than others (and feelings of "superiority" is a theme in Bressons earlier Pick Pocket). And therefore he don't really care for others, despite his idealism with books about "saving the planet". The other characters are more caring about each other - and for Charles. (Maybe Charles is even a sort of fascist?) I won't go into the ending here as it may spoil the experience. This dark movie demands some reflection afterwards.
The DVD from AE has very clear and stable picture. There are no extras, but at a price of 8GBP it is very good value for money.
As I see it, Charles problem is not just as he says: that he sees things too clearly. That is, he sees all the bad stuff in the world and therefore can't find any meaning in anything: environmental pollution, the list of things you "have to do" like raising a family, education, work and so on makes him sick and bored near death. Charles is a slacker in the 1970s, and he refuses to contribute to the society he finds so rotten (but he clearly has no problem using others money). But clearly Charles also has got problems relating to other people. He finds himself "superior" and more intelligent than others (and feelings of "superiority" is a theme in Bressons earlier Pick Pocket). And therefore he don't really care for others, despite his idealism with books about "saving the planet". The other characters are more caring about each other - and for Charles. (Maybe Charles is even a sort of fascist?) I won't go into the ending here as it may spoil the experience. This dark movie demands some reflection afterwards.
The DVD from AE has very clear and stable picture. There are no extras, but at a price of 8GBP it is very good value for money.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
Robert Bresson is probably upset with the world of the late 70s. During the introduction of the group of activistic Parisian youth, which becomes Bresson's ensemble of the film, problems of the present are scattered at us with direct hits. Environmental issues such as Oil-dumping, seal-extermination, pollution, overpopulation, industrial interest in rain forest as well as the need for modernity in Christianity surrounds our band of outsiders. What frightens me is that these problems and statistics have increased muliple times since then, and left us now, with even more troubled minds. When a teenage girl inserts nude photos inside Church programs and Bible booklets in the Cathedral to provoke disgust, a teenager named Charles with mid-long dark hair, steps up to his group and tells them that this is not respectable. After the opening credits, a newspaper displays Charles' face on the cover, with the headline: "Parisian teenage committed suicide." Only to be replaced by a new coverage: "Parisian teenage murdered". I find Charles, the most interesting figure in the film, and his search for answers for his existence in a decadent world, gets more and more intense. The love of his girlfriend is not enough, stealing money is too accessible and the psychiatrist is avoiding to go deeper into his troubles, because he is above all interested in money. What are the reasons why Charles is giving up on the world? The world through his eyes seems to be both senseless and unbearable. I like how material concern, the focus on success and fame are depicted as enslavement of people, manipulating our way of living and alienating our inner selves. Bresson is very clever at following the same stream of consciousness all the way to the inevitable death of the teenager. The film feels confident as Robert Bresson's next film 'L'Argent' which follows the usage of fake money from unaware teenagers, to the hands of an axe murderer. Both film are searching for something of a soul in society. I think Bresson is less preoccupied with external threats to our existence, which is mere backdrop, than the need for spirituality in the world, which many find in religion. This seemingly hopeless search is what drives the film forward, even if we learn that all misery today can probably be blamed on the devil.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
This is Bressonian compression and foreknowledge. We find out about the student who has committed suicide-or was it murder? from newspaper headlines then the film flashes back 3 months to unfold the story in full. So no suspense and the characters and city of Paris have been devitalized.We do get one student showing his friends film of environmental pollution and damage: the clubbing of seals,the despoiliation of the forests,the pollution of the land and oceans.We next see the uselessness of protest,the empty sloganeering and rhetoric of futile revolt. The death of God and the lack of relevance of church hierarchies with the splitting and dilution of religion.A psychiatrist can provide no answers but charges 200 francs.He thinks he sees too clearly.A Jansenist fatalism hangs over the young man and his group of friends.He reaches out to his friends who try to help him or look out for him, he has amoral sex without commitment to the two women in his group. Bresson decries acting and his `models' perform their actions perfunctorily without emotion.This is truly the chronicle of a death foretold in a world without spiritual values.The young anti-hero could be a Christ figure in a Pasolini film.There is a hypnotic,magnetic austerity to this penultimate film of Bresson's which is strangely prescient for our own times.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Wooden planks
You've probably noticed in some earlier films by Bresson, but never so much and to this extent - his peculiar technique or idiosyncracy - never seen anywhere else - of slanting the... Read more
Published 13 months ago by Mladen
noble material
Though I hesitate to use the archaic language of religion, on some level I saw Charles (this film's protagonist) as the spirit sputtering and fading in inhospitable times. Read more
Published on 5 Dec 2009 by thisnameisalive
Reach for the fast forward button, probably
I didn't enjoy "The Devil,Probably" , a 1970's French film about a nihilistic young man who doesn't want to live his life. He's a bit of an educated Sid Vicious in that respect. Read more
Published on 25 Jan 2009 by L. Davidson
Late Bresson
Sometimes, the outward manner of a work of art (the "style" or "form") may be incredibly rigorous and intensely stylized, yet the thematic concerns (the "story" or "content") may... Read more
Published on 20 July 2008 by Daryl Chin
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
