The Five Devils

According to Wikipedia, part of the filming took place in Isère (France), in the commune Le Bourg-d'Oisans and at Lac Bleu, as well as in Île-de-France. I couldn´t figure out why this movie is called The Five Devils. I read somewhere else that the name of the film relates to the five mountains nearby the place the action takes place. I do not think the landscape plays an important role in the film and, definitely has nothing to do with the story being told. Perhaps a more suitable title would be The Scent of Things, considering 'scent' is a strong issue throughout the whole film, which attracts our attention but does not contribute much for clarifying the development of the plot per se. If I have not read a short description given in Mubi about the story, the whole movie would have been even more confusing to me. Vicky´s father, Jimmy, had not seen his sister Julia for 10 years. From what I remember, Vicky and Julia had not met before, up to the day Julia arrives at the family (Joanne, Jimmy and Vicky) house and the story starts.

The Five Devils: The eponymous devils are actually five mountain peaks which provide a backdrop to the events in this French feature. Vicky (Sally Dramé) is a precocious, solitary child who is bullied at school. She has an extraordinary sense of smell, even able to track down her mother in a forest. Her mother Joanne (Adèle Exarchopoulos) is a swimming instructor, fed up with her firefighter husband Jimmy (Moustapha Mbengue), she reflects on her past glories as a swimming champion and local beauty queen. Vicky uses her facilities with scents to create copies of those of people close to her. She enters trances, travelling back in time, experiencing the events as they occurred. Things become even more fifficult for the Solers when Julia (Swala Emati), Jimmy's sister, comes to live with them. Why Julia left the the mountain town ten years ago and how it affected Jimmy, Joanne and another teenager, Nadine (Daphne Patakia) is central to the narrative. A dark film in places, entering into the slipstream of horror. Vicky seems to indirectly influence events in the past and bring physical objects back. Sally Dramé is wonderful as Vicky, accepting her abilities, not put out by her time travels but upset by her parents' deteriorating relationship. Adèle Exarchopoulos potrays the still beautiful and fit Joanne, but longs for her lost teenage years and perhaps more. She swims in an icy mountain lake for twenty minutes each day, almost as a self punishment, a great performance. Emati's fiery Julia is haunted by demons, not just of her past but those she encounters now. Mbengue;s Jimmy tries to be the anchor for this unhappy family. A story of love, guilt and elements of darkness and horror. Directed by Léa Mysius, who co-wrote the screenplay with Paul Guilhaume. 8/10.

Without assistance, teaching, learning you've acquired, certain skills that take you back to times expired, with your jars of concoction, your magic causes a motion, that can take you back to places you desire. What you find, seems to defy, cause and effect, and the paradox is a mystery and detracts, as your appearance would affect, all the outcomes you'd expect, chicken, egg, just takes you to a disconnect. So you scratch your head, your chin and raise your brows, as you determine all the why's and where's and how's, all the acting is quite fine, Adele is always so divine, but there are better ways to engage and arouse.

It's definitely a drama/mystery. There are odd things that happen surrounding the daughter, Vicky, that you aren't suppose understand from the beginning, but will be clear once you reach the end. The story is confusing, because it's meant to be, because the characters have a intense history that you don't know. It's kind of like the sixth sense where you aren't meant to understand everything the 1st time you watch it, but with the sixth sense, you didn't really know you didn't understand everything until the end. I think the problem some people have with this film is, confusing things happen surrounding Vicky, and even at the end, they don't actually have a person say IN WORDS, what's the deal with Vicky, you just have to figure it out, but it's not that hard when you think over every thing you saw. Imagine watching the sixth sense, but they never specifically referenced ghosts, and the kid never said "i see dead people", but all the evidence of him seeing dead people was there.

Les Cinq Diables, from director Léa Mysius, begins with intrigue but never fully delivers on its concept. Adèle Exarchopoulos is magnetic in every scene, and Sally Dramé rivals Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis) as the cutest kid ever. If this movie shines for any one reason, it is that we get to spend 96 minutes with these two.

The story and storytelling, however, are the weakest links. For a good chunk of the film, the story sort of meanders without any real sort of tension, presumably to tease out the mystery. Some plot points end up going nowhere, the climax that gets supernaturally pieced together doesn't pack the punch it seems it is going for, and I think a lot more could have been done to bring the themes home and make it far more powerful. In a way it reminds me of a Jacques Audiard film in the way it unloads a lot of rich theme but does not tie it down neatly for the viewer--which may be frustrating for some audiences and thought-provoking for others.

Les Cinq Diables is an ambitious film that lays decent groundwork but never seems to find its footing. It may leave enough for some interesting discussion on the interface between sexuality and relationships through the eyes of the innocent, but its clever approach more often gets entangled in subpar storytelling and a loosely-threaded plot.

Watch it for the cute kid and for the goddess Adele. Skip if you desire a more cohesive narrative.