Review: Psychological Horror ‘Our Father, The Devil Conjures A Specter In Unlikely Garb

We live in the golden age of films about the immigrant experience, even if the stories themselves are neither flashy nor rich. Instead, filmmakers rooted in this community abandon well-constructed stories of courage for stories with serious and dark themes, exploring this perilous state of belonging to two worlds, or perhaps both.

Cameroonian-American filmmaker Ellie Fumbi's excellent debut, OUR FATHER, THE DEVIL, is further evidence of this new cinematic trend: a clever, terrifying and moving thriller set in a French town haunted by the ghosts of the past. of an African immigrant. An unwanted and worthwhile trip.

Babette Sajo's gruff, brooding performance takes center stage, shrouded in an atmosphere of moral peril and ferocious rage ready to cut with a knife (and sometimes it does). The film was a surprise nominee for Best Feature at the Independent Spirit Awards earlier this year, and it can now be judged by standing up to its notable competitors, including winners Tara and Finally Everything Everywhere and Everything at Once. Incorporation for the art of cinephiles.

It stars Sajo Marie, a sleepy resident of Luxor surrounded by mountains who works in an educated boutique retirement home in France. One of the boarders is a woman who taught him, Jean (Martin Amis), and when Jean - when his grandson talks about inheritance - responds by giving him the family's precious cabinet, it's a sign of fidelity of Mary towards this world. Lover. Old students. However, this measured sign of acceptance has an ambiguous side, for which an Algerian subordinate calls Marie "sweet" by adding spices to her drink, for which she is punished. His point is clear: if the recipe is suitable, it's scary to delete it.

However, Mary's carefully guarded existence is shattered when one day she arrives at the workplace to meet staff and residents, seeking to hear the humble and pleasant service of Father Patrick (Solomon C. Savannah), a priest new visitor. Immediately smitten, Mary is convinced that she is a long-dead monster known as the "Oracle" of her tragic and death-filled childhood in Guinea, but she doesn't tell anyone, not even her nurse friend Nadia. (Jennifer Chiappe). Later, in the tension between sympathetic father Patrick and his cook Mary - Fumbi's big-screen shot and cinematographer Tink Chan (one of the year's best) expertly conveys unspoken dread in a cramped space - she takes it. All this with your own hands.

The ensuing tense revenge scene reminds some playwrights of Ariel Dorfman's post-totalitarian psychodrama Death and the Maiden (1994), in which a regime survivor meets a doctor who thinks he's a prison torturer. . But unlike Fumbi, the cycle of guilt, identity and escape not only intersects in another kind of hell away from the horrors of the past, but also through the veil of salvation designated by religion.

Fumbi cleverly raises the question of whether or not Patrick is who she claims to be (seven, surprisingly enough), as echoes of Mary – a fusion of her past and present – ​​become a struggle for her body and her soul. Sacon's image reflects it all, from the pain and anger in his eyes to the horrors of the drowning woman. Even a chance encounter with a sexy, flirtatious bartender (Frank Sarrell) has the potential to cure or melt.

Our Father, The Devil is a film whose satisfying ending hinges on a decision rather than a strong concept, and in that regard, Fumbi delivers what deserves careful, compressed character study: a clear choice between the devil and , otherwise the angels. , then space, here, a person moved by pain. Like many, he can start over.

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