Lucifer

European Modernity shifted the focus of the problem of Lucifer-Satan from the usual heresy stuff like Bogomile & Cathar doctrine into the mainstream. Thus Joost van den Vondel, a famous Dutch writer of the 17th century, wrote a play on Lucifer, where he says that "the world is round". Vondel, aside Hieronymus Bosh and Rumi, belongs to sources of this movie as indicated in the end credits.

Not only the tondoscope making the world round came from the Luciferian milieu but the story itself, which is essentially a re-telling of Christ story, just Christ the baby is a result of carnal sin Lucifer commits with some Maria. Gnosis recognized that Lucifer is the good angel, opposed by the evil forces of Demiurge. The Lucifer character is stylized as the Good Shephard when he saves a lost sheep from a cave. Interestingly, it is the always smiling and grinning Satan - however named as such only in the end credits - who will evict the main characters, Maria and her aunt, Lupita together with her uncle Emmanuel from their house; as this happens after the part named "Sin" we could say it symbolizes the eviction from the Garden of Eden itself. The previous part - the arrival of Lucifer among people - is named "Paradiso", and the last, third part, devoted to the arrival of the child of Maria and Lucifer, is named "Miracle". That progeny is conceived with the help of sin to which Lucifer induces Maria; however, this time it is not apple, but alcohol drinking; the usual element of Dionysian celebrations.

Another character, a priest, builds a new church (besides the old one, destroyed by volcano, which appeared only in the 20th century) whose tower is to reach "heaven" - the parallel with the Tower of Babel is hard to miss. We start to believe that the villagers consciously or not, worship Lucifer, and really are "His" people. This premonition is reinforced by the seemingly innocent moment when Lucifer washes Emmanuel feet completely clean, a deed which Lupita has been apparently unable to achieve. As we know from the Book of Genesis, dust from crawling upon Earth is the fate decreed by God for the seed of serpent. Therefore, washing feet clean can be read as the reversal of that order of God.

Will that end well for them...? We do not know. However, the only miracle performed by Lucifer is not actually a miracle but the revealing of a lie - he forces Emmanuel (one of Biblical name for Messiah), an uncle of Maria who pretends to be ill, to walk. Well, Lucifer is sometimes called the king of lies too... it is only fitting that such a character becomes the king of liars and the heart's desire for Maria. The picture starts with some invocation about people not fully knowing the value of good and bad - and in some sense, the people of the village indeed would be hard to describe in those terms, as they are neither really good nor really bad.

The movie overall has a dreamy, slow quality yet the lives of villagers are entirely realistic, as if they were filmed for a document - and yes, the Italian director, a champion of social realism, Roberto Rossellini, is one of inspirations for this movie as given in the end credits - this is the first time when I would say that reading of the end credits is necessary to fully understand a movie.

Lucifer is a very unique movie. It was filmed with a high-sensitivity circular lens developed by some German company. The technique is called Tondoscope. The entire movie (except for the last 30 seconds or so) has a circular framing instead of a rectangular one, making it a very unusual viewing experience. Because of the high light sensitivity of the lens the entire movie also has an eerie, luminous quality, with the picture appearing more "whitewashed" than in other films.

It was filmed entirely in some bizarre Mexican village near an active volcano so usually there were no outsiders in the village and they found the movie crew a bit annoying although many locals agreed to appear in the movie (apparently only the guy playing Lucifer is a pro actor). Those old-fashioned clothes people wear are also a local specialty as well as the public announcement systems (which according to the director are always yelling stuff and advertising throughout the day, creating an unbearable cacophony...they silenced it because of the filming which the locals also found strange, they were unaccustomed to silence). The story of how this movie was made sounded so interesting that it might deserve a "making of" documentary of its own...

It won the best movie award in Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival and rightfully so...very innovative and clever movie which deserves mainstream success.

In fact this movie featured TWO innovative techniques as it also had a 360 degree mirror lens system used in some parts of filming.

Van Den Berghe was also there on the screening and told us how difficult it was to get the sound in place because they couldn't use the usual stereo sound as the picture frame had no "right" or "left"...in fact only in the end of the movie, for about 30 seconds, the standard cinematic frame appears together with the regular stereo sound and indeed it's like entering a different reality. I didn't think about the sound at all when watching it but the difference became clear during the stereo sound segment at the end.