Murdering the Devil

She is in her forties – or near them –  and life isn't at all what she expected. Maybe a trip down memory lane could help? In her younger days there had been a splendid young man, Bohouš Čert whom she fancied and who had also seemed interested in her. And so, she looks for and finds Bohouš Čert, who is now Engineer Čert. He has become pretentious, arrogant, self-involved – a nightmare. And still, she thinks it has to be this cretinous creature who will lead her to the altar.

Murdering the Devil remains the sole directorial effort of art director and costume designer Ester Krumbachová. Who also co-wrote some of the key Czech 60s films, like Věra Chytilová's seminal monument of pop feminism, Daisies (1966), Otakar Vávra's vivisection of authoritarian structures, Witchhammer (1968), or Jaromil Jireš Carter'ianly perverse female fairy tale, Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1969). Murdering the Devil had the bad luck of timing, it reached the cinemas at the extremely frosty beginning of the so-called Normalisation period. Even among like-minded souls, a work so anarchic and subversive barely stood a chance. After decades in the shadows of film history, the time to rediscover this eccentric gem has come!

– Olaf Möller