Home | Movies By Year | Movies from 1971
Don't Deliver Us from Evil
Buy Don't Deliver Us from Evil now from AmazonFirst, read the Wikipedia article. Then, scroll down to see what other TopShelfReviews readers thought about the movie. And once you've experienced the movie, tell everyone what you thought about it.
Wikipedia article
'Don't Deliver Us from Evil' is a 1971 French film directed by Jol Sria. It is loosely based on the ParkerHulme murder case of 1954.
Plot
Anne de Boissy and Lore Fournier are two adolescent Angevin girls who stay at a Catholic boarding school. Both have affluent and conservative families living in the countryside. Anne and Lore quickly become friends. They spend most of their time reading poems about the beauty of death, mocking their classmates and teachers, and engaging in vicious pranks and petty theft, believing that not only is church downright fatuous, but also for idiots, as well as that the both of them together are special, and untouchable. Which is a fact that seems more and more true to them with each passing day when they always manage to escape detection and punishment by usually blaming it on their fellow peers.
When Anne's parents take a long trip and leave Anne behind during summer vacation, Lore secretly moves into their chteau with Anne, where they become lovers and their insidious pranks escalate. The girls set fire to the home of the local cowherd, mile, and let his cows loose as punishment for his sexual leering over schoolgirls. They also kill all the pet birds of their school's mentally handicapped groundskeeper, Lon, as well as ripping up his clothes and burning some of his personal belongings just to make him suffer. Then afterwards, laugh at his expense. Stealing sacramental bread same with traditional priest uniforms from the church, the girls prepare the abandoned chapel at the chteau for a Black Mass in which they wed themselves to Satan, promising more wicked works in his name. Even cutting both of their fingers and joining each other's blood so that their bond will become stronger.
One night, a motorist runs out of gasoline near the chteau. The girls invite him in, offer him alcohol, and begin to behave seductively toward him. The man attempts to rape Lore and Anne bludgeons him to death in Lore's defense. The two dispose of the motorist's body by dumping it in the lake, and immediately grow fearful of being caught.
Police later find the motorist's abandoned car and suspect foul play. A detective arrives at the chteau to inquire if the motorist stopped there, but is suspicious when the girls behave nervously and refuse to tell them where their parents are. The girls in turn become convinced that the detective knows what they have done and plan a suicide pact, convinced they will go to Hell and be rewarded by Satan for their service. At a school recital, the girls read out loud a rather grim yet equally eloquent poem by Baudelaire. The nuns become increasingly suspicious as to what Anne and Lore are up to, since they have no idea what the girls are plotting, or of their secret suicide pact. However they are too late to interfere in what is unfolding, and everyone in the room is engrossed with the girls' performance. After reading the poem, while members in the audience start to both cheer and clap in applause, both girls cover their clothes with petrol and set themselves ablaze. The audience, including the girls' parents, panic and rush for the doors as the girls burn to death on stage.
Cast
* Jeanne Goupil as Anne de Boissy
* Catherine Wagener as Lore Fournier
* Bernard Dhran as motorist
* Grard Darrieu as mile
* Marc Dudicourt as almoner
* Michel Robin as Lon
* Vronique Silver as Countess de Boissy
* Jean-Pierre Helbert as Count de Boissy
* Nicole Mrouze as Mrs. Fournier
* Henri Poirier as Mr Fournier
* Serge Frdric as priest
* Ren Berthier as Gustave
* Frdric Nort
* Jean-Daniel Ehrmann
See also
* 'Les Chants de Maldoror', which the girls read from and reference.
* 'Les Fleurs du mal', from which the girls chant various poems before dying.
* 'Heavenly Creatures', another film based on the same murder case.
References
Buy Don't Deliver Us from Evil now from Amazon
<-- Return to movies from 1971