Murdering the Devil, a recently-restored 1970s film by overlooked Czech New Wave mastermind Ester Krumbachová, is a darkly comedic and deeply incisive exploration of male entitlement, power dynamics, and the limits of endurance and tolerance in romantic relationships.

Blurring the line between surreal allegory and biting social critique, the film follows its protagonist, Ona (Jiřina Bohdalová), a woman whose exceptional patience and grace are tested to absurd extremes by a man, Mr. Devil (Vladimír Mensík). The fact that Mr. Devil is the literal devil doesn’t bother Ona; she is deeply invested in the illusion of romance and what, for her, it once represented. Yet, she increasingly struggles to reconcile her romantic ideals with the stark reality of her partner’s bad habits. Mr. Devil is a crass, insatiable glutton with a suffocating entitlement, who believes he represents Ona’s perceived last chance at companionship in a society that devalues single, older women. His offences range from grotesque table manners to relentless demands, where gnawing on her furniture is definitely a red flag, and mansplaining Freud is even worse. Ultimately, he fails to see her as more than a provider of—delicious and elaborate—food on the table, and thus fails to reciprocate anything meaningful.

In the form of witty, almost reality TV-style confessionals, the protagonist addresses the camera with raw honesty, peeling back layers of societal expectation and self-sacrifice. Her journey becomes both a personal reckoning and a broader critique of the cultural narratives that tell women to accept their lot—to settle, to appease, to endure. This meticulously crafted world becomes a stage for a 47-course lesson in why badly-behaved men deserve less, with the protagonist slowly realising that the love she thought she wanted might be less about a man, who is pretty much a projection of her own fantasies, and more about her belief in her own worth. Ona’s frustration gradually builds, until the only resolve is revenge, and a desire to punish Mr. Devil not only for wasting her time—she seemed to enjoy spending all day, every day, cooking, anyway—but her love, which is worth so much more. Ona suddenly starts asking herself: how much, really, are you willing to put up with?

Being so spectacularly lead-on—by a literal boyfriend from hell—may appear slightly dated for a younger audience today, where there is generally far more awareness around boundaries, and more societal gender equality. However, the film remains supremely modern in its question of morality. The devil is a mansplainer who traps you in a situationship? What a surprise. The constant evocation of sin in the film, and a woman’s constant succumbing to it, is not to say at all that a woman’s extramarital commitment to pleasure and a man is sinful, but that—with a feminist, tongue-and-cheek twist—entertaining any man that awful is the real sin. Despite being set almost entirely within the confines of an apartment, we see a woman’s passion that knows no bounds, and the consequences of her passion when thwarted. The film is highly sympathetic to a women who, out of loneliness, sacrifices so many aspects of herself to put up with a man like that some form of it inevitably ended up being endured.

Known first and foremost as a costume designer, and screenwriter behind seminal films like Věra Chytilová’s Daisies (1966) and Otakar Vávra’s Witchhammer (1968), Krumbachová’s directorial debut is a well-written feminist satire as audacious as it is visually striking. Murdering the Devil arrived during the onset of the Normalisation period, when Eastern Bloc censorship stifled even the most innovative voices. Despite its anarchic brilliance and visual dynamism, it was quickly buried by the regime, relegated to decades of obscurity. Restored in 4K in 2023 by the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, Národní filmový archiv, and Státní Fond Kinematografie, this long-overdue rediscovery brings Murdering the Devil back to life with breathtaking clarity. The restoration process, supported by Milada Kučerová and Eduard Kučera, showcases the film’s humour, vibrant design, and Krumbachová’s enduring directorial vision.