Under the Sun of Satan: Did it deserve the boos?
Monday, April 20, 2020 at 8:30AM 
Films being booed at Cannes has stopped being newsworthy. Over the years, countless pictures were received by a chorus of boos when they bowed at the Croisette, either because of their daring qualities or the transgressive nature of their subject matters. Rare is the true mediocrity that earns boos. For those unhappy films, indifference is a more common laurel than a crown of controversy. One of the most famous examples of a film being publicly reviled at Canne was in the 1987 edition when Maurice Pialat's Under the Sun of Satan was unanimously voted as the Palme d'Or winner only to be lambasted on the spot by a furious audience.
Accepting his award amid the vitriolic chaos, the first French director to win that honor since 1966, spoke with his usual combativeness...
"I shall not fail to uphold my reputation. I am particularly pleased by all the protests and whistles directed at me this evening, and if you do not like me, I can say that I do not like you either."
As time goes by, Under the Sun of Satan has become one of the most forgotten Palme d'Or honorees, mainly remembered for the controversy it spurred. As the film is now available on the Criterion Channel, it's a good time to reflect upon this fate. Did Under the Sun of Satan deserve the boos?
Adapted from a novel by Georges Bernanos, Under the Sun of Satan is an ascetic tale of faith unraveled, examined and reignited. Far from declaring open war on the spectator with abrasive defiance, Pialat is reserved in his style. His detachment comes close to alienation, preferring a spartan style to deal with matters of the spirit. In its heart, this represents a frugally secular way of portraying faith, draining the story of any kind of ecstatic divinity. In one of the most bracing passages, we find our protagonist, a young priest played by Gerard Depardieu, talking to a mysterious salesman. The man might be the Devil, but Pialat refuses to overtly underline the cosmic significance of the moment.
Such contention forces us to engage with the material in a profound manner. The audience has to spar with the ideas the film illuminates for Pialat's formal presentation refuses to offer a predigested assimilation of the story and its portentous themes. It's austere cinema, verging on minimalism, a meditation on the varying natured of faith, evil, sanctity and, above all else, doubt. If there is one aspect where the film seems to court controversy is its foreshadowing of doubt as an intrinsic element of religious belief. Like Dreyer's Ordet, there are miracles to be found on the conclusion of Under the Sun of Satan, but here they are birthed out of a womb of uncertainty rather than being children of unwavering credence.
With few cuts, long glacial scenes and dialogues dense with intellectual reflection, every filmmaking choice that appears seems to carry with it a great weight. The result is a film that's as haunting as it is modest, a portrait of pastoral quotidian as a place where holiness can sprout from deep misery, where miracles are both unfathomable mysteries and tactile certainties. Amid this cinematic cosmos, each person is a universe and the mere communion of two souls in honest conversation is as awe-inspiring as resurrection. It's easy to imagine such a construct failing to impress, but Pialat's discipline proves too awesome to crumble and his actors can perfectly translate the complex notions of his vision. Depardieu, Sandrine Bonaire, and Jean-Christophe Bouvet, in particular, have seldom been better than here.
All in all, Under the Sun of Satan is a film I consider to be in the top 10 best Palme d'Or winners of all time, making its odious reception an irritating conundrum. Looking back at the 1987 competitive slate, it's easy to see some of the other likely favorites. Tengiz Abuladze's Repentance and Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire may have earned the support of the critics at the festival, but that still doesn't justify the reception of Pialat's masterpiece. Because of that, I beseech you to gaze upon the wonders of Under the Sun of Satan and make your own conclusions. As for the question that titles this piece, my answer must seem obvious by now.
Did Under the Sun of Satan deserve the boos? No.
Reader Comments (12)
Good read. It's on my quarantine queue but I always skip it.
I like the film and I just don't understand the animosity that instantly greeted its Palme d'Or win. I can only imagine it was something personal against Pialat. Certainly a recommended watch - Depardieu is very good as a character who is full of spiritual doubt and Bonnaire is very intense as a troubled character. Thanks for this article!
Love Pialat's movies in my regards one of the best French director
I remember absolutely hating this when I finally saw it at an indie movie theater in San Diego a year or so after it came out. I can't remember much except that it was frankly just too boring to hold my interest. And in my party, I was the one who liked it the best.
I love it.
Boos to a winner are not always related to the quality of a movie, but to the movies this winner did beat.
Pialat was booed because he won over a massive crowdpleaser, Wings of Desire.
cal roth: But the audience would alreay have known that Wings of Desire was unlikely to win the Palme. Wenders had won the directing prize, and that almost always means the Palme will go elsewhere. Only twice have they ever matched up. Also, that would be no reason to boo the winner of the Palme. It's not Pialat's fault he won. If anything, they should be booing the jury.
I think I remember reading that Pialat was unpopular in the French film industry but I can't remember why. Sorry not to have more precise info.
Even if it wasn't the most "popular" film in competition, UNDER THE SUN OF SATAN didn't deserve that reaction. Anyway it topped Cahiers TOP10 that year (but no luck with the Cesars, despite 7 noms), so it had not also detractors
Yes, the audience already knew, but they were mad anyway. I know a veteran critic the went to this festival and he told me everybody expected Wenders to win again.
It's a solid film, but it also feels overly indebted to Dreyer and Bresson. What does it do or say that previous adaptations of the material didn't? Schrader's FIRST REFORMED also covers similar ground three decades later, and does it better in my view. But Depardieu is indeed great, and Pialat is good at mood building.
Interesting I've never heard of this movie
I've never seen it but I hope to soon but if it isn't better than Wings of Desire? Then that's why it got booed.
Then again, being booed at Cannes is sort of a badge of honor.... unless you're Southland Tales, The Brown Bunny, or that movie Sean Penn made The Last Face.
I watched this film I think 10 years ago and I liked it, Gerard and Sandrine are very good in their roles, The conversations are a little longer but interisting overall. Far from a perfect movie, but it's a solid one.