"'Challenge The Devil'" ""Attention, attention..."" ""Will the first pilot on flight 325 please go to counter six."" "ls flight 471 from Beirut on time?" " One moment, I'll check." "It's on time, sir." " Thank you." "Any news'?" " Nothing." "He still Won't hand them over'?" " He insists he was robbed." "Yes'?" "Then too bad for him." "Let's go." "Are you sure he lives in that house?" " I'm certain." "He should be back any minute." " There he is!" "Careful, he might see you." "Open it." "The silencer." "He isn't that pig, Carlo." "That's him." "I'm coming, have some patience, please." "What do you want'?" " Open it, in the name of God." "What do you want'?" "Please let me in." "I'm injured, they're following me." " Following you'?" "What have you done'?" "Let me in." "Get Father Renigio, I'll tell him." "Father Renigio, at this hour'?" " Open it, in the name of God." "Or you'll have a man's life on your conscience." "Please get me some water." "But you're injured'?" " I've been trying to tell you!" "Wait a moment, my son, I'll get something strong for you." "Drink this." "Good, isn't it'?" "I'll call Father Renigio now." "Thank you." " Just ignore the label..." "It's real Brandy, Stock 84'" "They tell me to buy the cheap stuff, but seeing as I drink it as well." "Carlo." "You, here'?" "Pejo!" "My name is Father Renigio, now." " I'm sorry, Father." "No, no." "It's okay." "But you're injured'?" " Yes, but it's nothing serious..." "I came here to hide because they want to kill me." "Who wants to kill you'?" "Gyro." "Doesn't he live in Beirut?" " Yes..." "He was in Beirut, but now he's come to Rome to kill me." "He's the one who shot me." "But why'?" "For what reason?" "It's a long story." "I should have a look at that." "It's nothing, it's just a scratch." "That isn't just a scratch." "I'm sorry, Carlo, but I don't see howl can help you." "He's convinced I still want to blackmail him..." "He doesn't believe Alma stole the documents from me." "But that day when Marco brought you the money on Gyro's behalf..." "And to collect the documents concerning his boss..." "You..." "You really didn't know you didn't have them any more'?" "No." "And Marco didn't give me the money." "Are you sure she stole them'?" "Alma was with me the night before." "And I had the foolish idea of mentioning Gyro's documents to her." "And howl got them." "And the four million Cyro had promised me." "That Marco was going to give me." "I was stupid, I know." "But I trusted Alma." "I didn't know she was a thief." "Four million'?" "Don't be stupid, ask for more, she said." "I told her it isn't easy to change Gyro's mind once he makes a decision." "I was saying it for you, she said." "And that was the end of it." "But the next morning, when Marco came with the four million..." "The documents had disappeared." "Calm down, now..." "Rest." "You have a fever." "He wants me dead." "And Alma really will blackmail him." "I'm telling you, she'll ruin him." "Him... and his position." "His daughter's wedding." "Everything." "And I don't want that." "I don't want that." "Where is Cyro'?" "He's looking for me!" "I don't have the documents any more." "Calm down." "You're safe, no one can hurt you here." "I tell you he wants to kill me." "But I'll kill her..." "That Witch, I'll kill her." "The envelope disappeared, and I don't..." "It was her." "I'll kill her." "Brother, excuse me..." "The other priests will be coming down for mass." "Thank you, Brother Gaudenzi." "How is the injured man'?" "He's resting." "Good, good." "Do you like it, dear'?" "You don't have to go straight home tonight, do you'?" "...we can speak freely." "But why do you always say no'?" "Because I'm very busy, I don't have time." "What would that be'?" "Cheating on your husband?" "Perhaps, my dear." "But with yours." " You're a funny one!" "Ladies and gentlemen, the Argentinian star Sonia will sing, 'They saw you'." ""They saw you walking with someone else."" ""They told me you were holding her hand."" ""I don't think she was just a friend."" ""Perhaps it was..."" ""Perhaps it was an adventure."" ""They saw you..."" ""You can't deny it any more."" ""They told me you looked at her lovingly."" ""I don't want people to say that you don't love me any more."" ""You know how bad news travels fast."" ""They saw you walking with someone else."" ""They told me you were holding her hand."" ""I don't think she was just a friend."" ""Perhaps it was..."" ""Perhaps it was an adventure."" ""They saw you..."" ""You can't deny it any more."" "Give me a Cinzano soda." "Right away, madam." "It's you turn." " Thanks." "Later, okay." " Sure." "Ladies and gentlemen, the highlight of the show..." "The great international star, Alma Del Rio." "A Dubonet." "Are you dining with me tonight?" " With pleasure." "Straight away?" " In an hour, do you mind'?" "Okay, I'll Wait for you." " Alma, there's someone asking for you." "Who is it?" " I don't know." "I'm coming." "Cheers." "Good evening, Alma." " Pejo!" "You!" "I didn't recognise you." "It seems impossible, this is a pleasant surprise." "What are you doing dressed as a monk'?" "Look at you." "You look so cute!" "Don't be like that, come here and give me a hug..." "My monk!" "It's been so long." "Where have you been hiding all these years?" "In a monastery." " Stop it, I can't take it any more." "I don't believe you." " Alma, believe me, I'm a monk now." "Are you serious?" "Yes, of course." "A monk'?" "That's why we haven't seen you." "You know I thought you were in prison." "So Why are you here'?" "Because Carlo came to see me." "Did Carlo know about you'?" " Yes, but I begged him not to tell anyone." "That Carlo..." "He knows how to keep a secret." "I asked him about you, sometimes." "He never told me anything." "Did he send you'?" " No, he's injured, he's sick." "What's wrong with him'?" "Someone shot him." "Who shot him'?" " Cyro." "Then Gyro's back." "To kill him." " He doesn't deserve any less..." "He's a dumb idiot." " Alma." "Return those documents." " I'll never do it." "And don't look at me like that." "Quit hassling me, I hope you're not here to preach morality..." "A few years ago you were the worst asshole around, Pejo." "It's precisely because I was an asshole..." "That I understand that you can only be happy when you're at peace with yourself." "Stop." "I've have had enough." "And save your sermons for your bigoted congregation." "You're wasting your time." "Anyway, you don't belong here." "Get out here." "I'm not leaving until you give me the documents." "I don't know what you're talking about, I don't have any documents." "You know exactly what I'm talking about." "Okay, I've got them..." "And they're going to make me rich." " But they could also get you killed." "Everything in this world has a price, my dear." "And this time it's worth the risk." "Cyro has a new life in Beirut." "His daughter is supposed to be marrying some bigshot..." "Someone important." "Respectable folk." "Carlo told me." "He has to pay up, if he doesn't want to ruin the wedding." "And not just the four million Carlo asked for, you need to be smart." "What would happen if someone in the family, or the groom even..." "Read all those papers?" "The bride's father is a blackmailer, a thief..." "A rogue." "Cyro will have to pack his bags and leave Beirut..." "Where he has created an enviable position for himself." "Those are documents are gold to whoever has them..." "And that idiot Carlo asked him for four million..." "No, that's not enough, and I know how to get more." "Very well, but now you listen to me." "Aren't you curious to know Why I became a monk'?" "How do I know'?" "You've always been so strange." "Strange?" "No..." "I was just a good for nothing." "I tell you everything from the start..." "We had gone out of the city." "Our engines howled like mad..." "We unleashed all of our violence on daring races, overtaking crazily..." "We wanted to enjoy ourselves, no matter What." "Frija sat next to me..." "Hands off." "Stupid." "Gianni was in the other car, he was the leader of the gang." "Along with Maga, or Scatterbrains, as she liked to be called." "And in the third car, at the end, with her fiance, Jenny..." "Was Gugo, who loved playing the cursed poet." "And found alcohol to be his only source of inspiration." "But his compositions certainly weren't sublime." "Damn it." "It was still day, and we were already tipsy..." "And in the mood to do something crazy." "Drugs, drugs!" "I want some drugs as well." "We loved scaring the other drivers on the road." "That poor devil who managed to avoid a front on collision with one of our cars..." "Forcing him off the road, was savagely beaten..." "Stamped on, even." "And left more dead than alive in the middle of the road." "We were animals." "We loved the taste of blood..." "Of uncontrolled violence." "We were also cruel." "But, today, I realise we were just cowards." "Put it back Where you found it." "Idiot." "This way." "Turn left." "Turn left, Pejo." "We had lost the road, but we didn't care." "We just wanted to go forward, forward without a destination." "Night came." "We ended up in the courtyard of an old castle." "We made an enormous racket around the fountain to wake up the locals." "Nobody came." "Curious, we stopped." "Is anyone here'?" "Anyone?" "Anyone?" "Pejo." "A castle to eat in." "A castle to sleep in." "A castle to drink in." "It seemed deserted, uninhabited." "A spectral silence all around us." "It was an oppressive silence, spine-chilling." "Nothing seemed real." "We had lost all our arrogance, all our courage." "If we had any courage." "Suddenly, and almost like a dream..." "We found ourselves in a large hall." "In front of a fully laid table, lit up by candelabras." "Idiot." "There was everything we could have wanted on it." "A real regal lunch." "It was almost like they'd been expecting us." "Without asking too many questions, we started eating like hungry wolves." "We drank like newborns." "The alcohol lifted our sails, it went to our heads." "What followed needs few words to be told." "Damn it." "This will burn, alright." "It was an orgy of the senses, of sex..." "A hysterical orgy, animalistic..." "That had its guide in Gugo, the cursed poet." "The girls were out of control, they seemed crazy." "Especially Frije, who had lost whatever little self control she had." "She was an uncontrolled fury." "Just like the rest of us." "Diabolical beasts, completely dominated by the senses." "Just as the orgy reached its obsessive peak..." "A strange figure appeared, who Watched us unobserved." "He was an ageless figure, out of this world." "A figure I'll never forget." "Because he played a decisive role in my life." "Gentlemen." "Please, gentlemen!" "I interrupted your game, gentlemen, but, in a few minutes..." "I Won't be able to..." "I absolutely Won't be able to hear your voice." "Her hair..." "Was..." "It was like immersing your hand in water..." "In living water, from a torrent..." "A torrent of sun." "Her hair is still the same, like it was before." "Before her death, I meant to say." "Time is my enemy." "Do you understand me'?" "Her eyes..." "Even her eyes are still the same." "Like they were before." "When I looked into her eyes..." "It's like I was lost, disorientated." "It was infinity." "You understand." "Infinity." "That strange man's words seeped into us through the alcohol..." "We didn't realise the torment of that soul..." "And we made fun of him, without ever asking..." "What strange things must have happened in that mysterious castle?" "I didn't want time to destroy of this forever." "Earth to earth." "Earth." "...in the muddy earth it's buried in." "We are all condemned to death." "As we are in life." "No, I rebelled..." "At the injustice of this condemnation." "I didn't accept the fatality of death, I didn't accept the fatality of life." "For her..." "For her beauty that I wanted to last forever..." "Like a statue." "Do you understand?" "The Devil." "Do you know the Devil'?" "I knew the Devil, for her..." "For the continuation of her beauty, that I didn't want to be apart from." "L..." "I sold my soul to him." "I don't know Where her body is, but I hear her voice every night." "It's like..." "A cascade of sounds without a precise source." "But this isn't what she wants." "She doesn't want it." "No..." "She doesn't want to live." "She Wants a real burial." "It's the end, when the rooster sings, I will die." "And from that moment, my soul will be lost for all eternity." "Help me." "Help me find her again." "Look for her." "If you find her, and you give her a real burial..." "You'll have all the riches in the castle." "From his words, we mistook him for a madman..." "But he had found our weak point." "He offered us all the riches of the castle." "It was the opportunity we'd all been waiting for." "The chance to become rich." "And all we had to do was find a women who was hiding in some corner of the castle." "Fred, grab that." "Look at him." " Get a move on." "Poor chap." "Let's go." "Apologise." "It was like a game to us." "That semi-conscious state, typical of drunkenness..." "Made everything seem so unreal." "Come here." "Maga, over there You, there." "And you, there." "What are you waiting for'?" "Lift it." "Those terrible emotions had destroyed us." "We had to stop for a moment to gather ourselves." "To try and see things more clearly." "But there was always a bottle in someone's hand..." "That none of us could resist." "Besides, alcohol helped us forget how soared we were." "So we continued looking." "Without realising we had only overcome the first test." "Stop it." "Will you stop that?" "Who did it'?" "Look over there, a spider!" " Where'?" "A sword." "It was in the chest." "We started to understand that our task, in that immense castle, was absurd." "A tiredness came over us, it almost completely paralysed us." "It was a reaction to our earlier excitement." "Idiot." "It's her!" "It's the lady of the castle." "Look at that, Gugo." "It was an apparition." "An apparition of an errant and unhappy soul." "Her beauty was indescribable." "It was a vision none us could renounce." "We had almost reached our destination." "We suddenly found ourselves on a staircase that seemed never ending." "An enormous spider, repulsive..." "But, at the same time, strangely..." "It inspired confidence in us." "It was spying on us." "And for all our terrible tasks, we had that unusual witness." "The stairs seemed never ending." "We pushed ourselves to our limits." "But where were those thousands of steps leading us'?" "Towards the sky'?" "The passage is blocked." "The door opened like a magic spell." "We found ourselves in a large hall." "Crystals..." "Crystals everywhere." "That inexorably held us prisoner." "The more we tried to get past those transparent obstacles..." "The more we found." "They prevented us from communicating with each other." "The anxiety gnawed at us, it drove us mad." "And very soon, a madness came over all of us." "The Weakest were the first to fall, especially the men." "Gugo, already hysterical by nature, couldn't take it any more." "The girls." "The girls." "Hell..." "Hell must be something similar." "But what we thought was already dead and buried..." "Our heart." "Following that prolonged suffering..." "Started, very slowly, to re-open." "Jenny, what's Wrong?" "The spider!" "Get away from there." "The spider." "There it is!" "We were condemned forever." "The spider." "Let's follow it." "A fragile, vague, hope of escape, of salvation..." "Attracted our attention." "The thread from our friend, the spider." "Another staircase." "Going down, this time." "The spider." "It was an equally interminable descent." "Governed by the spider that would occasionally appear in front of us." "Finally, a long corridor appeared in front of us..." "That might have brought us back to life." "The illusion didn't last long." "The fall was rendered even more brutal by the feeling of hopelessness." "Miraculously, none of us, apart from the pain of the fall..." "Had suffered any serious injury." "Gugo was the first to find his thirst for life..." "And with all his strength." "It's the Devil." "The Devil." "This time we were saved." "Saved, above all, by ourselves." "And so different, after that testing night." "In which we had destroyed our evil instincts by their roots." "The reward came by itself." "The young lady of the castle, the purity..." "Perhaps our own soul, appeared before us." "The riches didn't interest us any more." "All we felt was a strong compassion for that old man..." "Who, at the same time we found his woman..." "Who he was ready to sacrifice everything for..." "He lost her forever, losing also himself." "Our last gesture, before leaving the castle..." "Was to give the young lady a merciful burial." "Allowing her to rest in peace." "The man we had savagely attacked was still there, on the road..." "Exactly where we had left him." "Perhaps it was a Way to redeem ourselves." "We carried him lovingly, in an attempt to heal him." "Strangely, his face resembled the old man from the castle." "Here." "You win." "And you've also managed to ruin my night." "You can go now." "Get out of here." "Go away." "Subtitled by Friar Tuck vvvvwcultfilmsubscom July 2011"