Hors Satan

“One of the top ten films of the year.”—Cahiers du Cinema

Suffused with elemental images—fire, sky, sea, land—Bruno Dumont’s mysterious, monumental parable concerns an unnamed drifter who seems to exist beyond good or evil. In the stark, desolate hinterlands near the Calais coast, this figure—does he suggest Jesus? Satan?—disturbs the balance in a seaside town with his miraculous powers and becomes the protector of an awkward young woman. An opaque spiritual allegory in a breathtaking setting, beautifully photographed in CinemaScope, Outside Satan recaptures the striking power of Dumont’s earliest works, Life of Jesus and L’humanité. Like all his best films, it is masterful in its form and tone and interested in both the sacred and the profane. (109 mins., 35mm)