The Devil's Bath

The ending of The Devil’s Bath is haunting and devastating, reflecting the tragic depths of Agnes’ despair. Throughout the film, Agnes grapples with overwhelming depression, feeling trapped in her bleak life as a peasant woman in 18th-century Austria. Her mental health deteriorates as she faces relentless rejection and neglect—her husband Wolf’s indifference, her mother-in-law’s harshness, and her deep sense of unworthiness. Her longing for a child becomes an obsession, and her increasingly disturbed mental state leads her to desperate acts, including stealing a Holy Infant and consuming rat poison, which hallucinate her into believing she is buried and at peace. Agnes’s feelings of guilt and sin are profound, stemming from her belief that her suffering is a punishment and that she needs to die to escape her torment.

Her final act of murder—the killing of the innocent boy—is motivated by her desire to release herself from this pain and to secure her place in heaven through a form of “suicide by proxy.” She sees her act as a means of purification, believing that through this sin she can achieve an absolution that her faith promises. Her confession to the priest provides a fleeting sense of relief, but it ultimately seals her fate. Agnes’s execution is brutal and symbolic; she is beheaded in front of a superstitious crowd, and her blood is consumed by the community, who see it as a sacred blessing. This ritual highlights the era’s brutal and religiously charged attitudes toward death and sins, emphasizing that Agnes’s own guilt and despair have culminated in a tragic, inevitable end—her sacrifice serving as both a final escape and a symbol of the oppressive societal and religious forces that shaped her life. The ending leaves viewers with a haunting reflection on how mental illness, societal expectations, and religious guilt can drive a person to such a devastating conclusion.

Last Updated: June 25, 2025 at 09:02