A Roman woman who lost her father to an act of terrorism finds herself unraveling while her fiancé, accused of terrorist activity, stands trial in Marco Bellocchio's 1984 erotic drama. His adaptation of Raymond Radiguet's semiautobiographical 1923 novel Le Diable au Corps, previously adapted by Claude Autant-Lara in 1947, opens in unsettling fashion as a wild-eyed woman in white steps unsteadily across the tiled roof of a palazzo. A high school classroom, including 18-year-old Andrea (Federico Pitzalis), watches in alarm. Giulia (Dutch-born Maruschka Detmers), who lives across the way, also watches, transfixed.
When the woman's eyes meet Giulia's, she snaps into focus, recognizes that she's in trouble, and calls for help. Several students rush out to pull her to safety. The stranger predicts Giulia's suspension between madness and normality. Crisis averted, she heads off to the courtroom, while Andrea hops on his moped to follow her car. After Giulia joins her future mother-in-law, Mrs. Pulcini (Anita Laurenzi), Andrea watches her exchange glances with Giacomo (Riccardo De Torrebruna), who has decided to turn state's evidence to buy his freedom. The sequence predicts Bellocchio's 2019 film Traitor in which a former Mafioso testifies against mob bosses who watch behind bars in the back of a courtroom.
Andrea returns the next day, but this time Giulia slides over to talk to him. Soon, she's spending all of her time with the young man, who becomes an increasingly erratic student. Though she lives in a spacious apartment, she doesn't work, implying that Mrs. Pulcini, who visits often, secured it for her. Giulia, whose wild mood swings and exhibitionistic tendencies suggest a combination of bipolar disorder and narcissistic personality disorder, makes no attempt to hide the affair, arousing the consternation of everyone in her vicinity, not least Andrea's father, Dr. Raimondi (Alberto Di Stasio), her therapist. "I know Giulia well," he cautions his son. "She's completely mad."
Giulia describes herself much the same way ("I'm crazy"), though Bellocchio never explains whether she's always been off her beam or whether present circumstances have pushed her in that direction. After all, he provides scant information about her background. Throughout, Detmers laughs lustily one minute and shuts down the next, though her inscrutability makes it hard to sympathize. Even if she's just fooling around with Andrea to pass the time, it doesn't bode well for her impending marriage to Giacomo.
Andrea, meanwhile, becomes obsessed, a trait he shares with John Moulder Brown in Jerzy Skolimowski's Deep End, who also fixates on an older woman, but if one film ends tragically, Devil in the Flesh concludes on a more ambiguous note. Though the film proved controversial in Italy due to an un-simulated sex scene, Bellocchio doesn't elaborate on the political context involving the Red Brigades, which may confuse some non-Italian viewers (No Shame's 2005 home-video edition includes elucidating extra features missing here). Detmers' performance certainly leaves an impression, though the eroticization of mental illness ends up feeling more exploitative than enlightening. A strong optional selection.