The enigmatically titled The Five Devils is a layered and visually beguiling fantasy that is initially intriguing but ultimately an overcooked surrealist hybrid from sophomore director Léa Mysius that frustrates more than it enchants and only partially succeeds in grappling with its topical subject matter. The story centres on a muti-racial, French-Senegalese family who lives in the sleepy French provinces when a sudden and unexpected visitor from the past threatens to tear the family dynamic apart by unearthing buried passions and re-opening old wounds. Ten-year-old Vicky (Sally Dramé) lives with her parents, water aerobics instructor Joanne (Adèle Exarchopoulos), and local firefighter Jimmy (Moustapha Mbengue). Their marriage shows signs of strain and a sense of distance creeps between the couple.
Joanne discovers early on that Vicky has an extraordinary sense of smell. In fact, unbeknownst to her, her young daughter has been able to recreate the scent of any person she meets, which she labels and stores in small bottles. When Jimmy’s sister Luisa (Swala Emati) returns after a ten-year absence, Vicky senses an unexplained tension between the adults, and she soon discovers that her smelling potions can allow her to access the past to reveal a series of surprising and life-altering revelations. As Vicky’s time travelling exploits continue to unearth more details about Joanne and Luisa’s relationship — including a traumatic and fiery accident — we see how carrying the burden of the past has taken an emotional toll on these characters, not least on young Vicky, whose sense of childhood security is shattered with every passing revelation.
The time travel premise plays out like Proust’s madeleine with a touch of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the supernatural hokiness of Stephan King. Mysius has mentioned the influences of The Shining and Twin Peaks on the film’s beautifully eerie atmosphere, and the opening aerial shot seems to be a direct wink at Kubrick’s horror masterpiece. Mysius has said that the idea for the film started with two images: a young woman screaming in front of a fire and a young girl with a gift of smell, but the film fails to successfully bridge both of these ideas in a cohesive, satisfying way. The narrative rests on the audience’s willingness to accept this magical realist concept, but it sometimes sits uneasily in the story. The dark spectre of provincial racism and homophobia lurks in the background, from Joanne’s father’s discriminatory sentiments to the mixed-race Vicky being taunted at school. Still, the retreat into the fantastical sometimes seems like an unnecessary distraction.
Mysius is more confident in depicting the central relationship between Joanne and Luisa in their younger and older selves. Exarchopoulos and Mbengue are both excellent here, culminating in a showstopping karaoke sequence involving a well-known soft-rock ballad, which becomes a leitmotif for their relationship and shows how deeply their bond has reverberated through time. While the screenplay, co-written with cinematographer Paul Guilhaum, can sometimes feel rickety, the harsh, imposing beauty of the Alpine setting is wonderfully used. The film excels with lush atmospheric visuals — all saturated blues and shots of shimmering, watery textures. The soundtrack of pop songs is nicely counterbalanced by Florencia Di Concilio’s excellent electronic score, which employs distorted recordings of animals and nature sounds, adding to the witchy, unusual atmosphere.
The Five Devils attempts to cover so much ground that the fantasy drama sometimes creaks under the weight of its own ambition. Melding an elemental love story with elements of sorcery and time travel to tackle thorny issues of racism and homophobia in contemporary France is a novel and unwieldy approach that doesn’t always work, despite giving the queer narrative charged timeliness. Nonetheless, this is a strangely seductive and intriguing vision from Mysius that shows impressive visual flair and narrative vigor.
