Review of The Devil and Ms. D

I concur when fellow 'film lovers' describe this film as a typical child of German art. It is filled with symbolism and at times to deep. When a confused man meets a frustrated wife things begin to boil up. It turns out that the confused man believes to be the devil incarnate. Talking to a shrink (who is a desperate house wife that is married to a man so obsessed with his own mortality, that he can not enjoy life) he relives the last chapter of his life. Instead of keeping his good work going he is repulsed by the crudeness humanity has given evil. As a typical man in the last years of his career he decides to find out if he still has it within himself. He decides to embark on an 'evil' enterprise to spite god and humanity. To do that he chooses a raw diamond (Maria Callas in her young years) of pure humbleness and Italian innocence. When he gets her into trouble for the first time he discovers that she has a gifted voice. His plans change and now he becomes obsessed with his new task: He wants the voice to be pushed and drilled to absolute perfection. This absolute perfection would then reflect gods existence. However, what would spite god more than to hinder this evolution towards godly perfection more than destroying it just before it reaches its goal? The devil stays at her side (in the shape of a poodle) over all her singing years and pushes her into misery and voice perfection. However, he gets so infatuated (it is difficult to think that the devil falls in love) with the beauty of perfection that he misses to spoil the absolute perfect 'godly' moment. His entire world shatters when he suddenly hears her singing and realises that she has reached a god like voice. Germans believe (it is best described by Goethe's Faust) that happiness is a phenomenon that lasts only moments (if you have many such moments then you are a happy person). So he realises that he has seen gods perfection and knows that he has lost what has now turned out to be the last confrontation with god. Having lost his will to be the devil he ends up on the shrinks couch. Together they embark on a bizarre, at moments over painted, journey to find their happiness. There are many other subplots running on a parallel string of events. However, they all turn around the theme: The search of happiness.