The Devil, Probably (1977)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Devil, Probably (1977) – R. Bresson

Robert Bresson was known for his austere style, which focused the camera on the hands and feet of people doing actions and avoided psychologizing.  His films often raised spiritual questions and he seemed particularly interested in the problem of undeserved suffering. One of his most famous films, Au Hasard Balthazar, 1966, is about a donkey and its harsh existence.  Bresson seems to be in awe of those who persist through suffering unbowed although they may end defeated or dead (or very occasionally they succeed, as in A Man Escaped, 1956, about a prison break).  However, The Devil, Probably, is a more difficult case.  In this film, the young protagonist, Charles, doesn’t actually suffer much himself – however, he sees the environmental degradation of the world around him (pollution, unrestricted logging, nuclear weapons, etc.) and he knows that it will lead to the suffering of all humankind.  He investigates various solutions, religion, political action, marriage, escape into sex/drugs but finds them wanting, although his friends vary in terms of their reactions to the oncoming despair.  None of them, however, show any emotion, which is another aspect of Bresson’s style (said to heighten the viewer’s reactions); the actors are taught to be as inexpressive as possible, and here they are nearly somnambulant. In the end, Charles chooses suicide, not because his own life is hopeless but because the world is a dead end.  Or so we can conclude from what is really a very sterile (and bleak) intellectual exercise.  The young people around him are concerned about Charles (whose fate we know from the very start of the film) but they seem powerless to stop him (or perhaps they understand him all too well).  The ending is rather horrific after a sombre 90 minutes of mundane actions and some ambiguous talk.  Only a brief scene on a bus where a few other riders chime in, like a Greek chorus, to suggest that it is the Devil (probably) who is responsible for the world’s decline, contains any spark -- and if by Devil, we mean human weakness, then I would elevate the level of probability to certainty.   Depressingly relevant, forty years on.