Woolf + Lapin was at this morning’s screening of French filmmaker Bruno Dumont’s latest film, Outside Satan.
This film, like Life of Jesus and Humanity tackles religion with a philosopher’s lens. It explores the idea of the sublime. Dumont emphasizes that he intentionally placed his nameless drifter protagonist above morality. And well above the concerns of good and evil.
Dumont says that whatever “is religious is invisible.” To render what is invisible and internal is virtually impossible. It is in the realm of the mystical. And film is mystical in that regard. It allows filmmakers to show that invisibility through metaphor.
Much of the location of Outside Satan, Côte d’Opale, is used to show the internal struggle of his characters. To Dumont’s credit this location, where he spends most of his time, does in fact “direct” the action.
Côte d’Opale’s sky, the rich evocative landscape, and the elements battering it, help to sustain this low-lying tension throughout the film.
Dumont also talked about his creative process. He says he doesn’t write scripts. His approach is more literary. He begins instead by writing a novella. And then sets out to capture its essence on the screen. A description of a hand knocking at a door, for example, may take up to four pages to produce the desired effect and meaning. But again he refers to the usual conundrum of attempting to fully bring what is on the page to the screen. Impossible, he says. This same hand knocking on the door resulted in a measly three or four seconds onscreen.
However, this scene and the characters kneeling and praying before the awesomeness of the landscape is of a rare beauty. There’s a quality of otherness to his films, outside of everything.