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: Daisies, The Party and the Guests, Valerie and Her Week of Wonders, Witchhammer, Diamonds of the Night, Fruit of Paradise. The 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.