Il demonio (1963) belongs to Daliah Lavi. Lavi gives a manically desperate performance full of convulsions and contortions. It’s a performance that is as fragile and vulnerable as it is violent and destructive. She acts out possession and fury with equal measure, moving fluidly from one extreme to the next. That Lavi can sustain her performance is amazing. It’s a feat of acting to rival Isabelle Adjani in Possession (1981).
Il demonio is set in a remote village in Southern Italy. It’s a town of deep superstition and folklore that director Brunello Rondi shoots in beautiful monochrome. An eerie atmosphere permeates the cinematography that records the action and its locations with a documentarian eye. The village itself and the surrounding rocky hills exist as a character just as much as Lavi does. Lending her fits and terrors an authentic urgency.
Lavi’s character Purif is a woman scorned and possessed with rage. She turns to local superstitions and is branded a witch. Purif is a threat to the status quo because of her unchecked sexuality and rage. Purif rails against the patriarchal social constructs and institutions in episodes of explosive terror as she struggles to liberate herself. The more that she rebels the more patriarchal rituals she is subjected to.
Il demonio is a work of the horror film genre that flirts with “possession horror” but is ultimately a work of folk horror. There are a number of narrative asides and episodes that deal exclusively with local folk culture. Il demonio is explicitly anthropological in its fictionalized study of rural Italian folklore. In this complex of ideas Purif is the centerpiece that motivates varying customs.
Il demonio, with its tragic ending, suggests a feminist reading. One can interpret the film as a tale of female agency that is ultimately squashed by dominant men. Just as the title “witch” empowers Purif it also signals her inevitable doom. Il demonio is a powerful work of thwarted autonomy and the price of mental illness. All these themes are perfectly nestled in the genre conventions of folk horror.
