The Five Devils

A film set in a French mountain town. Vicky is eight. She has a gift: she can separate smells. She knows every one and collects them in jars. She labels them, keeps them, and mixes them. Her mother Joanne works at a swimming pool. A lifeguard, and very good in the water. Her father Jimmy is a fireman. The family lives in the town. The mother is Black and the town is white; the narrative opens that in a few scenes. One day a woman arrives. Julia is Jimmy's sister. She was in prison for years and has just come out. She moves into the house. Joanne is uneasy. There is something between the two women and nobody says it. Vicky collects her smell. She opens the jar and breathes it. And goes into the past. From there the film runs two times at once. The girl is in the late 1990s. In her mother's and Julia's youth. She sees them there. They see her too but do not know who she is. There was an incident. A fire broke out and someone was badly burned. Julia went to prison for it. The narrative opens what happened piece by piece. What the narrative is interested in is not magic but a secret: its idea is that a child finds what her family has hidden, and that finding it eases nobody. The relationship between Joanne and Julia opens at the end. Vicky sees it. And understands that her own existence is connected to that fire. The narrative explains no rules. How the smell works, why it works; none of it is said. Paul Guilhaume shot it; mountain, snow, water and fire recur throughout. One scene takes place in a karaoke bar and is entirely strange. Léa Mysius directed; it is her second film. Adèle Exarchopoulos, Sally Dramé, Swala Emati and Moustapha Mbengue are in the cast. Who it is for: anyone who likes films that place a fantastic element inside realist drama. Who it is not for: anyone expecting explanation; the narrative sets no rules and some connections never become clear.