Outside Satan

By the Channel, along the Côte d’Opale, near a hamlet with river and marshland lives a strange guy who struggles along, poaches, prays and builds fires. A girl from a local farm takes care of him and feeds him. They spend time together in the wide scenery of dunes and woods, mysteriously engaging in private prayer at the edge of the ponds, where the devil is prowling.
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A drifter living in the woods outside a small French coastal town strikes up a unique relationship with a strange young woman. When killings ensue, the local police begin an investigation, but the couple remain apart from everything through a mix of religion, spirituality and complete detachment.

Drama | Religion/spirituality | Alienation
Programmer's Note

Bruno Dumont’s meticulous and distinctive films encompass a wide cross-section of subjects. He is determined to invest his work with an emotive and humanistic bias, positioned within a strictly composed and compelling visual structure. Also central to his work is his sensitivity to landscape — in the case of Hors Satan, the Côte d’Opale on France’s northwestern Atlantic coast — and to enigmatic characters on the fringes of society. Against his setting, Dumont rigorously sets mode, tone and colour.


Hors Satan focuses on a true outsider, a drifter who lives in the woods outside a small village where he strikes up a strange and unique relationship with a young woman. Both remain nameless throughout the film. The Guy acts as protector to the Girl, unemotionally killing a couple of people whom she claims are tormenting her and making her life a living hell. Their communication is virtually wordless and nothing is ever made explicit, the meaning left to the viewer. As the local police start to investigate the murders, we are led to believe that it will not be long before the Guy is apprehended. However, Hors Satan is far from a crime drama, its director more interested in the inexplicable as he nudges his film in another direction.


Hors Satan transcends its own realist aesthetic and Dumont’s love of physical environment by veering toward the sublime. This narrative shift comes in the form of spiritual transformations that carry distinct religious overtones. Dumont crafts a film in which logic, reason and the structures of society give way to other forces, moving us outside our comfort zone into a space that can be described as other-worldly and highly personal. Directing with his customary discipline and mastery, Dumont once again impresses and confounds, raising as many questions as he answers.
Piers Handling
Director's Bio

Bruno Dumont was born in Bailleul, France. He has taught philosophy and directed more than forty commercials, shorts and documentaries. He is the director of La vie de Jésus (97), Humanité (99), Twentynine Palms (03), Flandres (06), Hadewijch (09) and Hors Satan (11), all of which played at the Festival. Humanité and Flandres were both awarded the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival.