Lucifer stars the acclaimed, extremely talented actor Franz Rogowski (In the gangs, Transit) and Susanne Jensen, artist, author and pastor of the North Church. Jensen was sexually abused by a Catholic pastor as a child and teenager. The WDR documentary “It was your own father” reported in 2011 on this fate and how Jensen deals with it.
The pastor, who is tattooed and mostly shaved and often wears a dog collar, has written an erotic thriller, among other things, is active on YouTube and Instagram and clarified her own creed in her own film project “Gott will live in darkness” in 2015. What she has in common with her film character is that she used to be addicted to alcohol.
In “Lucifer” she plays Maria, the mother of Johannes (Rogowski). With all sorts of religious rituals, the two try to seek God and keep evil away. It is not for nothing that the very dark film is only released from the voluntary self-regulation (FSK) for those aged 16 and over. Brunner was inspired by a true story of an exorcism for the drama with horror elements around the topic of superstition and religious fanaticism.
As in his previous works, he processed physical and mental illnesses and dealing with death. The producer of “Luzifer” was the Austrian Ulrich Seidl, who, among other things, told the story of a fanatically devout Catholic in the drama “Paradise: Faith”. By his own admission, Seidl himself grew up in a strictly religious family.
Little Jesus, big Jesus
“Where is the devil?” This question runs through Maria’s mind and the film. Is he in nature? In any case, nature can have a lot of spooky things about it – especially in the foggy seclusion of the mountains. And Brunner shows this in impressive, elaborate nature shots. The two hermits practice a kind of aviculture, and an eagle often joins them or hacks someone’s arms until they bleed.
Maria (strange that women with religious connotations in films usually bear this name) has an alcohol addiction behind her. She prays daily in front of a tree shaped like a cross and thanks God that she is now dry. Since the death of her husband, however, her religious fervor took on fanatical traits. She punishes herself with heavy iron spikes and wants to transfer her religious zeal to her son Johannes (biblical name!). He is mentally retarded, but also loses himself in the religiously charged fantasy world.
Mary forms a cross with her son, sitting on his shoulders and spreading her arms. The “cross” here means, above all, suffering. Not redemption. Just as the two of them meditate in nature with their shaven heads, pray and either seek the devil or God, they sometimes seem like Buddhist monks in the mountains of Tibet.
Maria likes to walk around naked and explain the tattoos on her body to her son, but more like a mother explains the animals in a picture book to a small child. “Dad saved me,” explains Maria, because she actually wanted to end her life, but “Dad” told her “about faith, and God came into me”. The father is something like the “big Jesus”, and her son Johannes is her “little Jesus”. And so Johannes wears an old T-shirt with the words “Bon Jesus” on it most of the time.
Pastor with multiple personalities and a history of alcohol
After all, the mountain landscape is to be developed for tourism, and the two get a lot of money. However, they give it to a small chapel nearby. With their religious rituals, which are becoming more and more abstruse, the two want to keep the threat from the valley (“the molesters”) away. The devil, that’s also the modern technology here, which repeatedly dives into the mountains in the form of menacing flying drones.
The film was shot in the Zillertal in Tyrol, among other places. The three-month filming was possible for Pastor Jensen because she was taking a sabbatical from her work as a pastor and substitute pastor, she told the NDR. It was “extreme physical and mental stress” for her, said the 58-year-old, who suffers from chronic pain. She also has post-traumatic stress disorder and a multiple personality, the NDR report says. She has been a dry alcoholic since 2003.
Jensen said she was able to transfer all of the pain she experienced to her character in the film. And that makes the character seem even more real. The feedback from her community about her commitment to film is consistently positive, she said. She still wants to remain a full-time pastor and pastor.
Critics praised Jensen’s “breathtaking performance, in which she puts her heart and soul into it”. The pastor from Owschlag in the Rendsburg-Eckernförde district won the prize for the best female lead at the Spanish Sitges Film Festival. She said to the NDR: “I’m proud like Oskar that I have the prize. I don’t know of a pastor in the flesh who does church services in villages and who has played a part in a horror movie like that.”
Not for the faint of heart, the film, which portrays faith as a burden rather than a salvation and distorts it more into the occult, won the Special Prize for Best Director in the Locarno Film Festival competition. It can be seen in German cinemas from April 28th.
“Lucifer”, 103 minutes, drama, horror, director: Peter Brunner, from April 28, 2022 in cinemas, FSK from 16
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