Beelzebub has a devil put aside for the spiritually tormented heroine of this brooding historical psycho-thriller, written and directed by Austrian duo Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala, which world premieres in the main competition at Berlin Film Festival this week. The Devil’s Bath is a family affair for Franz, who is married to controversial docu-fiction maestro Ulrich Seidl, credited as lead producer here. Fiala is her nephew, and together they previously made two high-calibre horror-adjacent shockers, Goodnight Mommy (2014) and The Lodge (2019), with the former earning official Oscar submission status in Austria.
But despite its promisingly pulpy title and creepy fairy-tale backdrop, The Devil’s Bath is actually a fairly straight period thriller that trades more in real-life horror than lurid fabrication, with a tone more naturalistic than supernatural. The story is rooted in true events, including two documented murder cases in Austria and Germany. Franz and Fiala have claimed their intention was to illuminate the struggles of women whose stories have been largely erased by the official history books. That said, The Devil’s Bath is still rich in eerie atmosphere, sporadically gory violence and teasing hints of witchy occultism. The story is certainly macabre enough for the horror-focussed streaming channel Shudder, who will add it to their roster following theatrical release in March.
The Devil’s Bath dramatises the nightmarish problems of chronic depression and religious repression among 18th century Austrian peasant women, problems which would have been widely misunderstood or simply dismissed at the time. The film’s intentions are worthy and mostly well handled, though the tone is relentless gloomy and the pacing a little slow, with a two-hour runtime that occasionally drags. The story takes place in a remote mountain region in Upper Austria, which appears to cower under a permanent canopy of thick fog, conveniently hidden from the eyes of God. The shocking prelude features a grim true story of infanticide, the killer a women who instantly confesses her guilt and welcomes her inevitable death sentence.
This macabre crime will reverberate through the events that follow, beginning with the marriage of peasant girl Agnes (Anja Plaschg) to farmer Wolf (David Scheid) in a small, religiously devout and socially conservative community. Agnes initially dreams of being a devoted wife and mother, but Wolf seems cruelly disinteretsed in shared affection, emotional connection or even sex besides the most bizarrely one-sided, joyless kind. His overly controlling mother Gänglin (Maria Hofstätter) also shows nothing but disdain for her son’s new bride: “you should have married a local girl,” she hisses at Wolf. “She’s our cross to bear.”
Whether by spooky accident or creepy intention, a friend gives Agnes a finger removed from the child-killing woman’s body as a souvenir, apparently intended to bring her good luck that never arrives. Instead, isolated and alienated, Agnes sinks into a deep depression, her behaviour increasingly erratic and self-destructive. She even temporarily steals a baby, telling Wolf “look what God sent us.” Locals begin to regard her as a cursed, diabolical presence. A grisly crank cure for her fragile psychological condition only ends up driving Agnes to more desperate, tragic extremes.
A severe, sulky, full-lipped beauty, Plaschg has an appealingly stern magnetism on screen, looking like she just stepped out of a Hans Holbein painting. Better known as a musician than as an actor, she has only played a handful of minor screen roles to date, but she gives a full-blooded lead performance here, hitting some highly charged emotional peaks during an extended, tearful, soul-searching monologue in the final act. Connoisseurs of European gloom-rock will know her work as Soap&Skin, whose tortured avant-torch songs are heavy on gothic melodrama. Indeed, her angst-heavy musical persona is a good temperamental match for Agnes, so it makes sense that Plashg also provides her own soundtrack here, mostly litugical ambient drone-scapes with a smattering of haunting vintage folk songs.
The Devil’s Bath is an ably acted and visually handsome production, even if its gloomy, oppressive fatalism becomes a little much across two hours. Filmed in northern Austria as damp autumn faded into frosty winter, the dramatic backdrop has an austere beauty and a drained colour palette of mossy greens, crepuscular blues and flinty greys. Shooting on 35mm, the directors pushed cinematographer Martin Gschlacht for “maximum darkness”, avoiding artificial light as much as possible. Deep shadows and flickering candles are the film’s default visual setting. Butterflies also feature heavily, apparently drawn to Plaschg’s plump lips, a spontaneous intrusion from the natural world that the film-makers transform into a lyrical, hypnotically strange motif.
Directors, screenwriters: Veronika Franz, Severin Fiala
Cast: Anja Plaschg, David Scheid, Maria Hofstätter
Cinematography: Martin Gschlacht
Editing: Michael Palm
Music: Soap&Skin
Sound Design: Matz Müller
Production design: Andreas Donhauser, Renate Martin
Costumes: Tanja Hausner
Producer: Ulrich Seidl
Executive Producers: Ulrich Seidl, Bettina Brokemper
Production companies: Ulrich Seidl Filmproduktion (Austria), Heimatfilm (Germany)
Word sales: Playtime, Paris
Venue: Berlinale (Competition)
In German
121 minutes
