the mukrder of mr devil

11 August, 2018

The Murder of Mr Devil is the only directed film by Ester Krumbachová, who imbued numerous films of the Czechoslovak New Wave through her costume and set design and scriptwriting, to name few: DaisiesThe Party and the GuestsValerie and Her Week of WondersWitchhammerDiamonds of the NightFruit of ParadiseThe Murder of Mr Devil  is a complete and mature debut that includes the period’s feminism, fortified with a peculiar form of sinister criticism with which Krumbachová targets both sexes.

The nameless central character of the narrative, a pretty, clever and refined fortysomething, strives to escape her loneliness through an encounters with Bohouš Čert (whose surname means “Devil”), a friend from her youth. However, he has become an overweight, ill-mannered man whose prominent trait is excessive voracity. She endures Čert’s visits only by holding on to the vision of an eventual marriage to which she is willing to sacrifice her own dignity. It is a mannerist play about the battle of the sexes, depicting with ornamental flourishes the incompatibility of men and women.

The film will be preceded by an extended introduction from film theoretician Petra Hanáková. Petra Hanáková is a former film scholar who played a vital role in rediscovering and reevaluating the mostly forgotten film in the 1990s and subsequently in introducing it to international public in her writing. 

This screening will complement CCA’s exhibition A Weakness for Raisins. Films & Archive of Ester Krumbachová, running  8 December – 27 January 2019. More information on the exhibition can be found at the CCA website.

GFT 12 Rose St, G3 6RB

Buy tickets

Hearts Beat Loud, GFT
Le Crime de Monsieur Lange, GFT

This section: Cinema

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Avatar of PatByrne Publisher of Pat's Guide to Glasgow West End; the community guide to the West End of Glasgow. Fiction and non-fiction writer.

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