Blancaflor, la hija del diablo (1988)

The young farmer’s son Martin frolics at the market. People bargain, laugh, and play games. Martin wins every game and even gets to kiss a pretty girl. Blinded by his success, he boasts that he could win any game, even against the Devil. The red-bearded Evil One, listening from behind a rock, is already intrigued. The farmers are appalled by Martin’s words and warn him not to recklessly tempt fate. As Martin, drunk and tired, rests at a lonely spot on the long, nighttime journey home, a dark, barred carriage stops in front of him. The veiled coachman tells the boy to get in, and they set off on a wild ride. Only after Martin promises the Devil that he will go to Hell with him does he find himself alive again at his parents’ farm. Martin bids farewell to his worried parents and his sad little cat, then seeks out his godmother, the miracle-working fairy Teresa. He hopes she will help him face the dangers of his pact with the Devil. Teresa and her talking owl warn Martin. But Martin remains cheerful: he always wins—why shouldn’t he beat the Devil too? As a fairy, Teresa has no power over the Evil One—she is no witch—but she can offer useful advice. The Devil is a gambler, she explains, and gives Martin these cryptic tips: 1. Use your wits, Martin, against the Devil’s vanity. 2. The straight road is not always the fastest: you have to overcome obstacles to achieve what you set out to do. 3. If need be, Martin should make the fairy share his ignorance. Teresa warns him: “How could a simple farmer like you take on the Lord of Hell, the Evil One with a thousand cursed names?” The owl repeats the dark names as if committing them to memory: Amon, Asmodeus, Asteroth—Balaam, Belial, Beelzebub—Chraim, Chramos, Cerberus. Martin’s arduous journey begins. No one knows the way to Hell, but the Devil himself rises from a deep, foul-smelling well. Martin mocks him, asking whether the Devil has any patience, and gets him to play a card game. Martin shows him the picture sides of the cards. They are from a version of the Tarot de Marseille: the Sun, the Moon, the Emperor. Then the Devil has to guess the next card, but vanity leads him to guess wrong: he thinks it will be himself. Martin has won the first game by using his wits against the Devil’s vanity. He also beats the Devil at their second encounter by following his godmother’s advice during a game of chess and not taking the straight route. For the third game, the Devil decrees that Martin must name three of his dark majesty’s names for each letter of the alphabet. Martin eventually manages this too, remembering his aunt, after at first being able to think of only the names Devil, Satan, and Lucifer. After these three trials, Martin finds himself back at his aunt’s. His victory over the Devil is only the beginning: next, Martin must face three of the Devil’s tasks in Hell. Teresa announces: “As soon as day breaks, you will see two doves. Follow their flight. They will surely show you the right way.” She gives Martin a comb: “This will help you most at the beginning, and at the end too. You must make the right decision. You must choose.” Martin follows the doves through a barren mountain landscape and olive groves, but eventually loses sight of them and finds two beautiful girls bathing in a lake: the dark-curled Sombragris and the golden-haired Blankaflor. The twin sisters, transformed from the doves, are like light and shadow; they are the Devil’s daughters and know the way to Hell. The way to Hell leads through sleep. After smelling Sombragris’s poppy flower, Martin falls asleep in Blankaflor’s lap. A struggle for the handsome Martin’s affection breaks out between the beauties, who look alike yet are so different. Martin feels himself falling into an abyss and finds himself in Hell. He demands his right to three more tasks from the Devil, who orders: “Your first task will be to bring me […] a fresh, crusty loaf of bread. You’re a farmer, aren’t you? Then you surely know how to plow the earth, sow, reap, and thresh the wheat.” Martin must make a loaf from a single grain of wheat in one day. Sombragris appears and offers to help him by giving him a finished loaf. But Blankaflor appears too, asks Martin to trust her, and tells him to sow the grain with a magic knife. When Sombragris’s loaf turns into a swarm of flies, Martin follows Blankaflor’s advice: he sows the grain, the ear of wheat grows, the fields ripple, and the bread is baked at the right time. The Devil is surprised and has to pay Martin his respects. But Sombragris tells him that Blankaflor helped. The Devil also wants wine to drink with the bread: “The second task I set you is this: bring me wine, delicious, fresh wine. You’re a farmer, aren’t you? You know how to plant the seed, grow vines, what to do to make them grow, how to harvest the grapes, how to crush and press them, and then serve me an exquisite, young, fresh wine.” With a single grape and Blankaflor’s help, Martin manages to make the vine grow and prepare the wine at the right time. The Devil and Sombragris are furious that Martin, with Blankaflor’s help, can match them at their games. Each time the Devil loses, a lock of his red hair turns gray. The third task, devised in the darkest way and intended to be impossible, is to decide everything: Blankaflor lost a red ring in the lake of Flageton, in the realm of the Devil’s fearsome grandmother Malfalgar. Martin must retrieve the ring, but the Devil’s grandmother demands a human life in return. Blankaflor decides to save Martin for the sake of love and sacrifices herself by plunging into the lake of fire. But love is stronger, and Blankaflor is able to return. The tasks are completed. But hostile forces continue to plot to separate the lovers and make their return to Earth impossible. Blankaflor prepares their escape from Hell. Three burning candles answer in place of the fugitives. Martin is supposed to choose the fastest horse between Wind and Thought, but he makes the wrong choice and chooses Wind, so the fugitives are overtaken. Martin throws his godmother’s magic comb behind him, and the pursuer is held up by a thorn forest. Blankaflor’s magic spear stops the Devil as he pursues them in the form of a bird of prey. Finally, the lovers must throw the seed-sowing knife from Hell behind them, and the Devil sinks into a landslide. The Devil and Sombragris find the lovers asleep under a tree. They devise a treacherous plan: Sombragris will impersonate Blankaflor and, as Martin’s wife, make his life on Earth hell, while the sleeping Blankaflor is transformed into a dove. Martin returns to his parents with the supposed Blankaflor. There he discovers that he has been in Hell not for three days, but for three years. While Sombragris prepares her wedding to Martin, Blankaflor, in the form of a dove, seeks refuge with Teresa, her magically gifted godmother. During the wedding procession, Teresa tells Martin to remember Blankaflor so intensely that he finally notices Sombragris’s deception and Blankaflor can change back into her human form. The forces of evil are defeated, the true lovers can be happy, and Martin’s little cat is finally happy again too.