Writer-director Léa Mysius' second feature, The Five Devils (Les Cinq Diables), seems pretty straightforward at first. The film follows eight-year-old Vicky (Sally Dramé), who lives in the French Alps with her swim instructor mother, Joanne (Blue is the Warmest Color's Adèle Exarchopoulos), and her firefighter father, Jimmie (Moustapha Mbengue). Vicky is an outcast and the only Black student at school; her classmates tease her with racist taunts like "butt brush" and "toilet brush," referencing the massive afro that swirls around her face. Despite the bullying, Vicky is primarily unbothered. She's content to spend her time with her mother and grandfather (Patrick Bouchitey), collecting jars full of her favorite scents that she keeps diligently labeled in her room.
Vicky's intense sense of smell is the first indication that there is something mystical and magical amiss with this film. For many people, smells enact memories, driving us back to certain places and spaces in our lives. But for Vicky, it's much more than that. Using her nose alone, she can find her mother in a blindfolded game of hide-in-seek. She can also identify where something has been or what it has come into contact with. Her collected scents are her reprieve from the chaotic world around her until something even more powerful begins to consume her.
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