Large Fierce Mammal

Tonight’s Dark Sentiment is a Welsh documentary from 2007 that touches in many places on material I visited in 2010 – the first year this series every saw the dark of night. I therefore recommend that you revisit those heady days of yore with Dark Sentiments – Day 15 and Dark Sentiments – Day 23, either before or after watching this film.

If I were The Devil rather than a marginally lesser evil, I might take exception to the film’s title alleging it to be THE history of me, but nevertheless, according to what appears to be pretty much everyone who has posted anything on line about it:

The History of the Devil is wickedly good, informative and concise. A no-frills Welsh film produced in association with SBS Australia and distributed by Siren Visual, it’s roughly 52 minutes in length and packs a fair dinkum amount of history into its slender running time.

The documentary itself is made up entirely of mostly still images alternating sporadically with talking heads; religious scholars, theologians and reverends.

Directed by Greg Moodie and written and produced by Dave Flitton, it was researched by Eibhleann Ni Ghriofa, Deirdre Learmont and Craig McGregor.

It’s an impressive and very open-minded account and offers some fantastic insight into the evolution; the hows and whys the specter of the Devil has existed and morphed through the ages from the dawn of civilization through to the new millennium.

So despite its relatively low-fi approach, the richness and diversity of its imagery; the historical plaques, plates, engravings, illustrations, paintings, drawings, and the occasional staged re-enactment (some dude dressed up in rather bemusing demonic attire), keeps the documentary at a high level of beguilement.

I don’t (yet) know who originally wrote that synopsis, but I sense the not so subtle influence of an Australian. Whoever, it more than amply describes an enjoyable distillation of Devilish lore, and on that note, pour a suitable tipple and enjoy.