The Devil is a Polish film that captures the conventions of Gothic literature—convents, madness, murder, incest, ruined castles—and molds them to fit a specific historical and political context.  Set amid the Prussian army’s invasion of Poland in 1793, The Devil begins with a political prisoner named Jakub being freed by a mysterious man who re-introduces him to a world of degradation, violence, and disintegration.  The Devil’s closest literary parallel is James Hogg’s The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner as the mysterious stranger emerges as a haunting presence that seems to lead Jakub ever deeper and deeper into madness with some unfathomable goal in mind.  Largely allegorical, the film likely uses the cover provided by its genre conventions to comment on the political landscape of Poland during the 1970s, but even without a thorough knowledge of the historic moment it proves to be an interesting work.  While it at times lapses into melodrama and absurdity, Jakub’s symbolic journey is one of the better examples of the cinematic Gothic that I’ve seen in quite some time.

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