Satan can be a real chum

Rating: 9/10 (26 July 2008)

It's hard to be a freak, even when you have been brought to life by Rasputin, Hitler and a few other crazy humans. But even Satan can fall in love with another freak of his type and even Satan can be attached to the catholic professor who became his father, the one who provided him with candy and sweets, because Satan has a sweet tooth. Satan somewhere is slightly human and a tiny bit catholic. A cross may burn his palm but when it has been served to him for sixty years by a benevolent old man who he considers his father he may start to like it, to love him and then to hate those who are on the other side. Don't expect any kind of deep emotional feelings though but expect some beautiful special effects that look so realistic that they will make you thrill and shiver. And what's more they will be exotic and lead you to rainy New York City and snowy Moscow and underground everywhere, in the NYC subway or in some Russian cemetery. You will meet with dead people who are revived and then can lead you to the very center of hell, or with surgical fetishists who have recomposed their bodies bone by bone and muscle by muscle. But the most attractive element is in the use of fire, the fascination with fire and that has to do with the constant reference to the apocalypse, that of the Book of Revelation of course? Fire seen as the ultimate cleansing element that can bring the universe to its end or destroy up all evil from earth. The ambivalence of this fire is fairly surprising in many ways since most people are afraid of fire and here it is the ultimate redeeming element. It is true when you are surrounded by meters of snow and tons of ice you are grateful for one little small fire in the living room hearth. And be satisfied: the FBI director who is in charge will end up locked up underground to die peacefully, at least deep enough for no one to be pestered by his protest and yelling.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines