Look at the soul of the ancestors For a long time in fiction dominated the romantic view of the Middle Ages as an era of chivalry, nobility and honor. To a large extent, this view was conditioned by the creators of the historical novel Walter Scott and Alexander Dumas, whose heroes differed favorably from their contemporaries. Even the dominance of critical realism has had little impact on posterity’s perceptions of their ancestors. And the twentieth century, with all its cataclysms, only strengthened this tradition. The villains of the past did not compare with the monsters of modern times, and therefore even those who wrote about ancient times without pink glasses (Maurice Druon, Vladimir Neff, Lyon Feuchtwanger) the reality of the Middle Ages looked much more attractive than the present. What to say about historical adventures from Emilio Salgari or Rafael Sabatini!
Cinema, of course, went hand in hand with literature, and formed in the viewer all the same, enthusiastic-romantic, idea of life in past centuries, not paying much attention to archaeological and historical research, quite content with the chronology of events and archival documents. As for the reconstruction of the mentality of medieval man, no one tried to think about it for a long time. Even in the late 60s, when naturalism began to penetrate the pages of books, and after them on film screens, there was no need to talk about a true immersion in history. Artists like Pasolini or Tarkovsky spoke of the present through the prism of the past. As for paintings such as Adrian Hoven’s Seal of the Devil or Gianfranco Mingozzi’s Flavia, the Muslim Nun, they did show the dirt, blood and pain of the Middle Ages, but could offer nothing more than sadistic naturalism. Their heroes remained mentally contemporaries of their authors, not fundamentally different from the inhabitants of the XXth century. There were exceptions, of course. But it seems that they existed on the territory of one single country - the Czech Republic, without crossing its borders. Films such as “Market Lazarov” Vlachila or “Hammer of witches” Vavra deserve a separate study – so it was a unique phenomenon.
The rest of the world learned that it is possible to shoot historical cinema from the point of view of a resident of the era under study from Paul Verhoeven, whose “Flesh and Blood” for many years became a benchmark. However, it cannot be said that it caused a wave of imitations. Still, it is one thing to savor those very “flesh and blood”, making the viewer delighted to be horrified by the materialized nightmare and even more appreciate the comfort of his own chair. And it is quite another to use shocking details to recreate the inner world of people of a completely different civilization. Verhoeven succeeded in this, and thereby opened the way for other brave men.
One of them was the Spaniard Paco Lucio, who decided to dive into the depths of the early Middle Ages with the help of one of the favorite actors of Tarkovsky Alexander Kaidanovsky. And in order to complicate the task as much as possible, the Spaniard did not immerse his heroes in the extreme conditions of wars, raids or inquisitorial purges. In the world of the Devil’s Breath, peace reigns. Moreover, the shores of the lake lost in the mountains lie away from the roads, it is difficult for hostile detachments to get here, and therefore the local inhabitants do not need to be afraid of an external threat. Except for my lord. But don Rodrigo is inclined to follow his own laws, and does not ask the surrounding peasants to do too much. It would seem – live and enjoy the earthly paradise. If only this paradise was possible.
At first, the mute hunter Damian believes it. Having fled with his wife and son from hunger and deprivation, he settles down with his relative Hines, who arrived at this lake a little earlier, in no man's land. The people of the local lord look upon it with suspicion, but do not hinder the new vassal. The main thing is to follow the laws. And among these laws is the right of the feudal lord to dispose of his subjects at his own discretion. And if a beautiful woman fell to this discretion, then no bond of marriage can stand in his way.
In principle, the plot of the film is quite simple, if not banal, and could become the basis for costume melodrama or simple adventures with a romantic ending. But the director is not interested in the plot at all, and especially not in adventure – his main (if not only) goal is to reconstruct the way of thinking and acting of a man of the Middle Ages. His inner mentality. Lucio seeks to find the differences and similarities between people of the past and our contemporaries, but the way he does this is somewhat puzzling. The director sees the solution to the problem as depriving a medieval man of God and seeing what happens to him. Nothing good, of course. After all, religion permeated all aspects of people’s lives at that time, and if it is removed, then it could not be replaced by “secular humanism” and similar ideas. They just didn't exist. The authors of the film knew this very well. Therefore, the answer they give is quite obvious - if in the mind of medieval man there is no God, then there is the devil.
The characters of the film, from Damian to Don Rodrigo, do not think about God at all. In fact, there is no church as such. It is recalled only by the priest Don Jeronimo, vainly trying to guide his parishioners on the Christian path. But they are more inclined to trust superstitions than the representative of the Church. For Damian, the only thing to believe in is his wife and son. Any encroachment on them he perceives as sacrilege, and punishes with the inevitability of Providence.
Famine, plague, and privation are only concomitants of a world without God. Paco Lucio shows them full-screen, with all the naturalistic details. But it does not focus, unlike the same Verhoeven. For him, it is only a means of penetrating medieval psychology. And not just in medieval psychology, but in a unique phenomenon – the medieval mentality, in which there was no place for God. And to operate this tool fell to Alexander Kaidanovsky, who did everything in his power, but, it seems, did not fully understand what was required of him. His Damian is very much reminiscent of the hero Rutger Hauer from the same “Flesh and Blood” – a brutal medieval warrior, ready to bite the throat of his enemies (in the literal sense of the word). But to play a man whose soul is empty, despite all the love for his neighbors that fills him, turned out to be above the powers of the actor. And therefore, for all the charisma of Kaidanovsky on the screen - just the shell of his hero, and the shell is very difficult to sympathize.
That’s why Paco Lucio’s film doesn’t achieve all its goals. The thesis that medieval consciousness could not exist without the idea of God was quite successful. But it was not possible to dig deeper, the director did not try to extrapolate ideas to modernity, and he did not claim philosophical and historical conclusions. Though it would be worth swinging!