Franz Rogowski in Luzifer (MUBI)

“Where’s the devil?” In Luzifer, this is uttered multiple times by Johannes (Franz Rogowski), a young man living in isolation with his mother, Maria (Susanne Jensen), in the Austrian mountainside. Maria was rescued from crippling alcoholism by her husband, Johannes’s father, and has connected her sobriety to her deep Catholic faith. Johannes himself has the mental capacity of a young child. Time and time again, Maria says she is protecting him and that God is in them and God is in Papa. So, it’s understandable that Johannes would be confused with the whereabouts of the devil.

An answer comes through the phone calls and the hovering drones that are dispatched by a company pressuring Maria to sell her property to make way for a ski resort. The drones terrify Johannes, and curiously Maria never offers an explanation. She is Johanne’s parent and teacher, but it becomes obvious that Maria is profoundly disturbed. She has deliberately retreated from a world she finds terrifying and steeped in sin. That terror of the outside world has been transferred to Johannes, who has limited exposure to others. His only other human contact is with a local hermit who runs supplies for them and a veterinarian who helps Johannes take care of his pet raptor.

In Maria’s mindset, her savior is both Jesus Christ and her husband, who is Johanne’s father. He is long gone, though we are not given any clues as to whether he’s alive or not. So, Maria has fused the two into one icon that she, and subsequently Johannes, worships. There is also an oddly physical relationship between the two. Maria needs physical (though not sexual) comfort and sees no reason why it would be inappropriate or wrong for her grown son to snuggle with her and stroke her ear.

Writer/director Peter Brunner focuses more on the self-contained, almost hermetically (sic) sealed environment that Maria has created for herself and her son than the danger the outside world presents. What plot there is involves the escalating tactics of the ski resort company and how it affects the pair. The rest of the running time is a deep dive into the duo’s life and idiosyncrasies. I wouldn’t even call it a character study as there is not much growth for Maria or Johannes, though he gains an understanding of the world beyond what he is accustomed to, or at least an understanding that there is a world beyond the mountains. In fact, Brunner’s, and our, immersion into their world is so detailed, complete, and uncomfortable that parts of Luzifer feel like a documentary akin to Grey Gardens. It is a credit to Brunner’s gift that we our attention never strays.

Eventually, things come to a head and Johannes has to make decisions without his mother’s input, and the full tragedy of his situation comes to light. In the end, Johannes pinpoints where he believes the devil lives, and the results are tragic. Brunner knows though, and the last shot confirms that the devil is, indeed, the greed of the world that would drive two fragile souls to the feverish hermitage they felt compelled to create.

If you enjoy the works of Werner Herzog or Lars von Trier, Luzifer may be up your alley.