By Josh Lancman ‘24 The films of Antonio Campos are about lonely people in surprisingly hostile situations. Whether it is a student in an unfriendly boarding school in “Afterschool” or a tourist in a foreign city in “Simon Killer,” his characters are always distinctly separated from the people around them; shown by the shallow focus – an isolator of the subject from the environment – constantly utilized in his films. These people are always lonely of their own design, having built protective walls around themselves, always due to some vague tragedy. The conflicts in these films come when the characters find themselves facing a threat symbolically connected to that same tragedy, which is threatening these walls and creating a vulnerability in the tough exterior that they have formed. And yet again, these threats are of their own design.
In “Afterschool,” it is the fear of being recorded doing something you shouldn’t, a fear that is created by the protagonist’s near fetishization of video. In “Simon Killer,” it is a man out for vengeance against the protagonist because of something that was done to him as an act of protection. In this film, “The Devil All the Time,” the large cast of characters is fighting terrible urges to commit truly unspeakable acts. In fact, they seem to be fighting the devil, all the time. “The Devil All The Time,” Campos’ fourth film, is an epic of broken people and shattered families, all taking place in post-World War II Appalachia. Their stories connect in numerous subtle and interesting ways that to describe how they intertwine, in doing so stating the plot, would not only be an exercise in futility but would also spoil several profound realizations the viewer should have while watching the film. At this point, a spoiler warning is necessary. As the film moves along at a marvelously slow place, it becomes clear that the film’s first third is meant to mirror the remainder. The beginning of the film is set up for what comes later. We follow a father, played by Bill Skarsgard, who comes home from the war, meets a woman and has a son named Arvin. Tragedy strikes, and it does so in such a shocking way that it must be seen to be believed. Told alongside this plot is one of a woman, played by Mia Wasikowska, with whom he had only a short interaction, marrying a preacher. Tragedy strikes yet again. The only survivors of these twin events are Skarsgard’s son and this woman’s young baby. Through completely reasonable events, they grow up under the same roof as brother and sister. Nearly ten years later, Arvin, now played by Tom Holland in his best performance yet, is about to graduate high school. After enough time in this section has passed, it becomes clear that the same plot as said above is being told again, this time with his step-sister, Haley Bennett, playing the roles of both his mother and her own. This theme of history repeating itself is important in the context of the film’s larger theme: that of violence repeating itself in a circular fashion; where one act causes another and another, never-ending until every character has killed or been killed. An example of this is when, as a soldier in the war, Skarsgard sees a man that was crucified by the Japanese. Years later, he does the same thing to his son’s dog. That act causes yet another terrible thing, and so on until the film ends. The violence present in this film is brutal, ugly, dirty and disturbing. As said before, it breaks people and shatters families, all culminating in a 140-minute epic containing 13 distinctly different people all somehow affected by that one chance act. See it only if you think you can stomach it. |
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February 2022
Recent ScoresSoul: 9/10
Mank: 7/10 Social Dilemma: 9/10 Chicago Seven: 6/10 |