The New Devil of Hellsbottom (1964) poster
1964 · fantasy · comedy · folk

The New Devil of Hellsbottom

Directed by Grigori Kromanov, Jüri Müür1h 34m1964
ElsewhereIMDb7.5116TMDB5.18
  • warm
  • brisk
  • inventive
Movie DNA

Warm, kinetic, gentle fantasy / comedy, inventive in texture. Ambivalent, mid-stakes, measured, hand-scored across twelve axes of taste.

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The way Saint Peter explains it to the Devil who's knocking on Heaven's door to collect his share of souls: there will be no more souls, as God has come to doubt if humans are really meant to achieve salvation. If they aren't then how can they be punished posthumous and sent to Hell? There's only one way to make sure if sinning is the human nature, or is it that they simply don't want to better themselves - Devil himself must go down to Earth, in human form, and if he can achieve salvation then so can a human being... Based on A. H. Tammsaare's classic novel of the same name.

Our read · The New Devil of Hellsbottom (1964) reads as a warm, kinetic, inventive fantasy · comedy · folk entry — gentle in intensity, mid-stakes in scope, measured in temperature, ambivalent in outlook. Hand-scored on twelve axes of taste — mood, pacing, weirdness, hope, stakes, humour, reality, density, warmth, auteur, intensity, and era — with a derived palette drawn from its dominant cinematography.

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The shape of The New Devil of Hellsbottom

Tonight, this looks like

What watching it is actually like.

You want a satirical Estonian comedy about the devil testing humanity.

ends warmyou’ll be fine aftersteady all the waygrips by minute 8attention 2/5breezes bysubtitles: full
Date nightWith friendsSoloWith parentsKids around

Skip it tonightSkip if you need fast modern comedy or dislike Eastern European satire.

If The New Devil of Hellsbottom is your film
Bedazzled (1967)
devilish bargain and witty moral comedy
(if you want period setting)
The Ruling Class (1972)
British class satire with dark humor
The Saragossa Manuscript (1965)
labyrinthine Eastern European literary fantasy
(if too long and nested)
DNA · twelve axes

The reading.

Each axis is hand-scored — not derived from votes or genre averages. The marker shows where this film sits; the gradient fill uses the film's own cinematography palette.

Mood · HeavyCosy
Pacing · Slow-burnKinetic
Intensity · GentleExtreme
Weirdness · ConventionalSurreal
Hope · NihilisticRedemptive
Stakes · IntimateEpic
Humour · NoneBroad
Reality · GroundedFantastical
Density · SparseTwisty
Warmth · ColdTender
Auteur · TransparentSignature
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