Devil in the Flesh

The film is certainly not Italian soft porn, and the sporadic sex scenes in it (although quite explicit at times) only make sense in the context of the entire film, which primarily revolves around the overall societal movement in Italy from the late 70s and especially the 80s. The progressive era of consumptive "normalization" with the fading radicalism of the 60s and 70s brought most Italians to the embrace of simple pleasures such as color televisions, cars, and of course, sex (let us remember Pasolini's famous justification in Salo, or The 120 Days of Sodom). The male characters in the film become symbols of this betrayal (Bellocchio himself was a member of the Communist Party and also a member of a Maoist cell in the 70s) or, for some, a sense of wisdom - notably Giulia's fiancé (who seemingly has no other role in the film) and her young lover. However, the film is not that simple, as it is complicated by (who else but) a woman. Giulia may appear at first glance as the most obvious manifestation of this primitive indulgence in sexual pleasures, but in her ambiguity, she would need to have not been played by the surprisingly very good M. Detmers and, most importantly, Bellocchio could not end the film with a perfect conclusion in which the role of the seemingly self-evident school lectures from antiquity to Feuerbach is fulfilled. Is Giulia a modern-day Antigone and therefore a positive character? And does the film thereby become Bellochio's denunciation of the times or a confession of his past mistakes? (26.04.2014)