An African refugee’s quiet existence in a sleepy mountain town in the south of France is upended by the arrival of a charismatic Catholic priest whom she recognizes as the warlord who slaughtered her family.
The notion of revenge often plays out in cinema like a singular driving force unmitigated by rationale or catharsis. Its exploration recalls some of the darker understanding of human nature, and the idea often explores notions of hollowing out a human soul, leaving no room for closure despite their best efforts. Stories of humans going vicious hit some notorious highs, such as “Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance,” “Oldboy,” and “The Searchers.” Foumbi’s directorial debut climbs right to the edge of an irredeemable act only to blindingly offer forgiveness in its final moments. “Our Father, the Devil” places itself cleverly in a tight bind but unravels as it examines its lead’s psyche through simple plotting and struggles to earn its climactic finale.
Marie works at a retirement home, leading several chefs as they cook meals for the patrons. She keeps to herself, mainly working to impress a former chef living at the home. Her world turns upside down when a Catholic priest shows up one day looking eerily familiar to someone from her past. In an unexpected confrontation, Marie kidnaps Father Patrick and takes him to a remote cabin to torture him for his sins against her. Whether he is the African warlord who ravaged her and murdered her entire village and family remains to be seen, but presented with the opportunity to exact her revenge, she starts down a dangerous path. She returns to her work and life and attempts to hold it all together as she contemplates taking this priest’s life.
The film lives and dies by its lead actress, Babetida Sadjo. She carries the film effortlessly and turns the role into something mesmerizing. Whether Marie is having a panic attack, pouring out her pent-up rage, or trembling under her lover’s arms, Sadjo is making an absolute meal out of it. Similarly, her counterpart, Father Patrick, played by Souleymane Sy Savane, makes good use of what little work he’s given. The revenge arc at the center of this story seems entirely well-placed. Marie notes how he raped and abused her, murdered her family, and even forced her to kill others. Even if the Father isn’t the warlord from her past, she could be understood for panicking and rashly kidnapping the subject of her anxiety.
The film’s conclusion revolves around Marie choosing to take the priest’s life or let him go and suffer the consequences. For the first half, we, the audience, don’t know if he’s the warlord or not. It’s a remarkably different beat when they finally reveal that he knows her and has the deep well of pain that she does. This lets her unleash her animalistic side and start cutting, waterboarding, and torturing him. When the film reaches its perilous climactic moment of Marie trying to burn down the cottage with herself and Father Patrick inside, it falls apart as she gives up her quest for vengeance and frees him. She finds forgiveness after her close friend discovers Marie literally soaked in gasoline holding a lit match. What should play as a deep breath of pain feels rushed in many ways. Father Patrick only briefly explains what convinced him to leave his vicious past behind him and explains he was merely copying what he saw. It’s not enough of an excuse to demonstrate his repentance. Seen through a Christian lens, it might work well, given his prayers are all prayers of repentance. We first meet the Father through a sermon he gives about changing from their errant ways, but his sins are too grave to be forgiven entirely, and Marie’s hesitation feels less motivated by forgiveness than a simple narrative desire not to kill her best friend in the process of murdering her rapist.
This movie wants to ask: Can we forgive those who have committed some of the greatest sins against us? It’s rough answer: yes. Still, it offers little outside her slowly crumbling personal life to convince us she might reach a destination other than self-immolation. It’s not the first time vengeance quests have undergone such thorough examination, and I loved seeing it through the lens of an African immigrant in France. Marie still faces all sorts of prejudice at her workplace. The movie takes care to set up all kinds of interesting ideas in the first forty-five minutes, but instead of twisting the plot further and further, it rests more on the exploration of Marie. Perhaps the thing I felt disappointed by was the idea that I might get a twisty revenge story (there’s a great beat where the priest escapes and holds Marie captive for all of five minutes before she escapes and conveniently ties her tormentor back up) and instead got an opaque character study in the back half leading to a plot-determined finale that didn’t feel entirely earned by the protagonist.
There is a noteworthy sequence of torture I can’t help but mention. As Marie goes to work on Father Patrick, we intercut sequences of her cooking with her wounding the Father. It’s an excellent budget-saver and spices up the torture scene to make us wonder more about her pain. When she raises a knife to his shoulder, it cuts to a chicken breast as she delicately flays the meat. She whips the priest’s back with a wooden board only to land her final blow, hammering a fish filet into perfect flatness. It’s a beautiful sequence and stands head and shoulders in the rest of the movie, but overall, the revenge arc, whether deliberately avoided or not, misses some of its mark to a forced conclusion that feels more didactic than cathartic.
Now Playing at the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago and in Select Theaters
