When does rooting for the damned stop being worthwhile or even productive? Viewers\u2019 sympathies are worked over throughout the grim Austrian folk horror drama \u201cThe Devil\u2019s Bath,\u201d a dreadful period piece about a pious woman who seems doomed by her circumstances.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Agnes (Anja Plaschg), an unhappily married woman who prays to God for mercy, makes more sense as a product of her time and setting, as they\u2019re understood by myopic present-tense filmmakers. Agnes\u2019s intensity can be endearing given Plaschg\u2019s expressive performance, as well as Martin Gschlacht\u2019s painterly cinematography, under the direction of co-writer\/helmer duo Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz (\u201cGoodnight Mommy,\u201d \u201cThe Lodge\u201d), who represent the past as a hyper-stylized study in needless suffering.<\/p>\n
Agnes starts and remains trapped by her association with the intolerant residents of an 18th-century \u201cUpper Austria\u201d settlement. Agnes has depression, a condition that\u2019s tellingly stigmatized in this movie\u2019s title. Her story is largely defined by her helplessness, not by her distinct character or even communal identity, making it increasingly difficult to care when her life inevitably becomes defined by degradation and pain. <\/p>\n
Agnes lives in hope, somehow. She prays fervently, works industriously, and generally tries to make a happy life with Wolf (David Scheid), her insensitive husband. Wolf spends all the money he can get on a house that Agnes doesn\u2019t love, one that\u2019s located a little too close to his miserable but dutiful mother, G\u00e4nglin\u00a0(Maria Hofstatter), who predictably does not care for Agnes. Wolf frequently talks to\u00a0G\u00e4nglin rather with his wife. He\u2019s obviously bad at sex, too, as we see in a needlessly cruel but handsomely lit bedside scene. <\/p>\n
Agnes\u2019s terror and uncertainty predominate this standout moment, but in a way that suggests that, on some level, she\u2019s still processing her hopelessness. No matter how absurd or unlikely it may seem to an outside observer, there’s still a chance\u00a0for Agnes to do something with the hand that life has dealt her. Then again, \u201cThe Devil\u2019s Bath\u201d begins with a shocking act of violence and ends with two more. You don\u2019t need to abandon all hope to enter the movie\u2019s painterly frame, but that sort of blind submission often seems to be the only emotional threshold to cross. <\/p>\n
How, then, can we relate to Agnes beyond her initial curiosity and pitiful investment in a world that apparently does not care enough to notice her or her needs? We join her as she attends and devotes herself to rituals that are unyielding, at best, and threatening, at minimum. She finds no joy in work, release from her home life, or pleasure in charity. Somehow, Agnes\u2019s most relatable and saddening release is her devotion to prayer. She often humbles herself through formal devotion and daily tasks and usually tries to become more than the sum of her needs. \u201cPlease grant me a child,\u201d she begs aloud, right before Plaschg\u2019s face peeks out from behind a lattice-covered window. We see the moon in the sky, and for a moment, we share her yearning. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When does rooting for the damned stop being worthwhile or even productive? Viewers\u2019 sympathies are worked over throughout the grim Austrian folk horror drama \u201cThe Devil\u2019s Bath,\u201d a dreadful period piece about a pious woman who seems doomed by her circumstances.\u00a0 Agnes (Anja Plaschg), an unhappily married woman who prays to God for mercy, makes …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[55,48,47],"class_list":["post-1400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-horror-movies","tag-history","tag-horror","tag-mystery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1400\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}