Conjuring Emotional Impact through History: A Conversation with ‘The Devil’s Bath’ Filmmakers Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala

In 1750 Austria, a deeply religious woman named Agnes has just married her beloved, but her mind and heart soon grow heavy as her life becomes a long list of chores and expectations. Day after day, she is increasingly trapped in a murky and lonely path leading to evil thoughts, until the possibility of committing a shocking act of violence seems like the only way out of her inner prison. Giving a voice to the invisible and unheard women of the rural past, The Devil’s Bath is based on historical court records about a shocking, hitherto unexplored chapter of European history.     

The ideological trappings of being a woman in any period of history are troubling, and most times, horrific. On top of societal and communal pressure, there’s no pressure more paralyzing than the pressure you weigh heavily on yourself. In Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala’s latest filmmaking endeavor, The Devil’s Bath, they explore this notion through a very specific period of time in history, 1750 Austria, to be exact – unearthing the emotional burden that was cast on women – and at the same time, reflective (to a certain degree) to our modern times.

Filmmakers Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala recently spoke with Script, hot off their International Premiere at Tribeca, about drawing from historical records provided to them by historian Kathy Stuart, tapping into the emotional core and inner horrors of the characters, and giving voice to them in a cinematic way, and more!

This interview has been edited for content and clarity.

Sadie Dean: How did you come across this very specific story? And essentially these archives?

Veronika Franz: Kathy Stuart opened her archive for us. She collected many cases, mainly German and Austrian-based cases. And the main story of Agnes who is originally Ewa Lizlfellner caught us emotionally. Because her case is very well documented there are like 80 pages, and people were interviewed around her, like her husband, and stepmother. Also, the woman who sold her the poisons. There's a lot of documentation around the case. 

In Europe, history is mainly about noble people, about kings, about artists, and not about women, and not about ordinary people. So what really kind of hit us was to listen to this voice of this woman who we would never have known if she would not have committed this crime.

We were impressed, because she gave us such an insight into her life, about her dreams, fears, about her anxieties. You won't find that in history. So we really fell in love with her, which made actually writing the script very difficult. [laughs] Because we felt so close to her, and wanted to give her a voice in cinema, or her and the other women.

We started out kind of writing a courtroom drama…

Severin Fiala: Because of those protocols, for us when we wrote them, they were very emotional. It felt like this could be a courtroom drama, because like every line, they said really touched us emotionally. So, we wanted to keep as much as possible, what we felt was very touching. But then when we turned it into a courtroom drama, it lost all the emotional impact, because it's not this like this real character talking to you, basically, very directly, but it's just two actors talking to each other. So, it lost like all the emotional impact. So, we had a hard time to figure out a way to convey the emotion and the inner horrors that this woman is describing in a more cinematic way and in a way that the audience can also experience it.

Veronika: I think, the confession scene in the end, there is this moment you get which links to the protocols again, because she's talking to the priest, but she's talking directly to the audience in a way. And we also used original sentences and phrases from Ewa Lizlfellner for that scene.

Sadie: That's incredible. And to have access to that kind of history in that context and just dialogue like that. There's a line stated a few times in the movie, which feels like it’s a way of gaining a sense of freedom for these women which is, “I’ve committed a crime.” I’m curious, was that directly lifted from the archives?

Severin: It was either that or that they needed to confess something, but confess is like literally in a sense it’s also something religious, so we slightly changed it to, “I've committed a crime.” But the method is always the same. So they commit a crime, and then they walk straight to the authorities and say that they killed somebody and knock on the door.

Veronika: So that’s authentic.

Severin: Most of the things, we always apologize to audiences, [laughs] and tell them that none of the very cruel things in the film are inventions from our deranged minds, but actually, it's all research. So the drinking of the blood, the cut off finger...

Veronika: The hair in the neck.

Severin: That’s all actually researched.

Sadie: I'd love to talk about the other characters, especially Wolf, and their relationship. As horrific as the story is, you do have a deep sense of sympathy for everyone. Of course, Agnes, but everyone in this whole community, because of religion and the oppression, especially with Wolf. How you were able to get into the minutia of his character without saying too much or giving away too much and letting the audience kind of put the puzzle pieces together?

Veronika: I think that's exactly what we are interested in, it's not painting an image of those are the bad guys. She is the victim. Our headline was ‘people are people.’ They have their good and bad at the same time. So, this also goes of course, for Wolf and also for the mother-in-law. When we wrote the script, we tried to have less dialogue. Which of course at that time among farmers, people would not talk about their emotions.

Severin: And I think Wolf’s secret, so to speak, is something that he would in those days would never have been able to discuss with his wife anyway. So, I think that makes it even sadder, like the whole thing she wants to get pregnant, but there is really no chance this is gonna happen. And still, she thinks it's her fault of some sort. And that makes it even more tragic. 

And I think it makes sense for the character who, even in the original protocols, felt like she was a perfectionist, and never felt she could be good enough. And she was always searching for the mistakes or for the problems within herself. So that's, I think, what alienated her and her whole situation that she could never think that it's not her fault.

Veronika: Yeah the pressure she was under or the pressure of society and the pressure or religious dogmas. I think this also connected to our days in a way. [laughs] At least for us, because there is no sense in making a movie only about history. So, we of course, we wanted to connect her case, or the disease of melancholy or depression, the situation of women to modern times. I know a lot of women who are perfectionists, [laughs] who kind of blame themselves all the time for not being good enough. Actually, when you read the protocols, she never blamed her husband. She said, ‘He was a nice man. He didn't hit me.’ And we didn't want to have only one reason for her melancholy.

Severin: It makes it all very easy if there is this one reason. And I think that's what we loved about this fall phenomenon, actually, that it's the opposite of easy. We have a woman here, who commits a horrible crime just to be able to die. And so, you feel deeply sorry for her. But still, she commits an awful crime, and she's a murderer. So, I think this makes it very hard to comprehend the whole thing.

And we're actually interested in those difficult things, because for example during feminism, there was the very first attempts to like, record something like or the to have something like women's history of female history in a way, people had a much easier time looking at witch trials, because it's easier to understand that those women were victims of society and of circumstances. So, they were victims, and it's easy to tell their story from a feminist perspective.

And here, I think it's much more difficult. And for us, it's even more feminist because it's more complex. And those women were also murderers. And I think that's them being both and them being everything and women able to be everything is more difficult, but also a more feminist approach we think.

Sadie: I'm glad you guys didn't do the courtroom approach because I felt it would fall in more into like, The Crucible, Scarlet Letter world, and this takes on its own life, which it definitely needs. 

Your creative collaboration with your actress Anja [Plaschg], she's both the actress and composer. There’s something incredibly rhythmic and dialed in about her performance. But it also feels really organic and like one with just like her atmosphere, and how she moves through everything. I would just love to talk about the directing process working with her in both of those roles?

Veronika: It's her first like really big part. When we approached her, we approached for the music for this for because she is a famous musician in Austria and Europe and maybe also in the States people know her. We knew that she could maybe relate to the topic of the movie. And we sent the script. And she reacted in a very deep and sensitive way. She wrote us a letter back. And so, we thought, ‘Oh, OK! Maybe we should audition her.’ [laughs]

Severin: Once we had decided on her, and that's always a risk, because in an audition you can never tell if somebody's really able to do the whole thing. But we decided for her. And she decided to do this together with us. And from that moment on actually working with her was, was a pleasure from start to finish. 

She is the most disciplined actress you could ever imagine. Because as a musician, she's also used to rehearsal and repeat stuff over and over and over again. And at the same time, she's a performer who really wants to experience something. So she's the ideal actress for us. And there was really nearly no work necessary from our end.

The Devil's Bath streams on Shudder on June 18, 2024.