Diabel (1972)

Oh boy, what a crazy mess Diabel is. This little-known Polish costume drama by Andrzey Zulawski  is a surreal tale about .... about ... well I am not sure what, but my guess is communist authoritarian madness, even though the film is set in 18th century Prussian takeover of Poland. I can tell you this (as a warning perhaps), this is not your ordinary cozy historical piece. Diabel is unruly and hallucinatory. We are presented with a young man who is released from a prison in the midst of fierce war events. The man, followed by the mysterious stranger that released him, returns to his home place. Depravity - everywhere. The young man, we are led to think, is a decent fellow really but somehow he is goaded into these horrid actions. The world the film evokes is out-of-this-world gorey. Nothing makes sense, except for a solid chain of events that turn bad into worse. Indecent acts are committed and blood is flowing everywhere. Cinematically, every image has a murky and unsettling quality to it. Zulawski evokes a world in which nobody in particular seems to know what is going on - except for the mysterious stranger. This is brought home by the frenzied camera work and eerie kraut-y music. The entire film thunders with an immense sense of rage. Everything in this world seems to be the product of a moralism that has no real grasp of morality.