Marlene Dietrich in The Devil Is a Woman: Total Chaos

The whole thing feels like a fancy nightmare

If you’re looking for a grounded, gritty drama, look somewhere else. The Devil Is a Woman is basically a beautiful, shimmering mess of lace, fans, and bad decisions. It’s definitely worth watching if you want to see Marlene Dietrich just absolutely own the screen, but if you need a story that makes sense, you might get a headache.

The plot is honestly just an excuse to watch people make mistakes. A guy gets warned about a woman, doesn't listen, and then spends the rest of the movie losing his mind. It reminds me a bit of the frantic energy in Along Came Youth, but with way more shadow and misery.

Oddly specific observations:

• The lighting in this movie is so heavy you could cut it with a knife. It’s like they were allergic to natural sunlight.
• Every time Dietrich walks into a room, the background characters seem to forget how to move. They just freeze. It’s weirdly hypnotic.
• There is a scene with a fan that lasts way too long. It’s clearly meant to be sexy or mysterious, but I just started counting the feathers.
• The costumes are completely ridiculous. I love them.

You can tell the director was just having a blast with the visuals. Some shots feel like they were painted on glass, while others feel like they were filmed inside a dusty closet. It doesn't have the cohesion of, say, The Breaking Point, but that’s kind of the point, right?

Dietrich is playing a character who is essentially a black hole. Everything revolves around her, and she doesn't seem to care who gets sucked in. Is it subtle? Absolutely not. Does it work? Yeah, actually. There’s a moment where she just stares into the camera, and you totally get why the guys in the movie are acting like idiots.

It’s not a film that cares about being "smart." It doesn't want to teach you a lesson. It just wants to show you how much of a mess love can be when you strip away all the logic. Honestly, I kind of respect that.

The pacing is a bit of a slog in the middle. You want them to get on with the inevitable heartbreak already. Still, it’s worth sticking through just for the final act. It’s a spectacle. A strange, slightly dusty, very shiny spectacle.