I guess it could be considered a kind of a deal with the devil. If hell is underground, but so is all the coal and gas and oil without which our cities would go dark and our engines cease churning, well, a deal has to be struck, and it is struck. So down we go, a self-invented industrial leviathan, a mining monster choking on the unintended consequences of a rashly settled bargain. Business is business, nothing is personal, and our better angels understand that the Devil, too, deserves his due.

Welcome to the machine, to Behemoth, galvanizing China with promises of paradise, subsuming same with sootswarms and gathering disillusion. Director Zhao Liang will be present via Skype to discuss his award-winning, visionary documentary, which doubles as a Dantean allegory and triples as a boot to your stomach.

Behemoth (2015) dir. Zhao Liang
95 minutes, Chinese with English subtitles
Mon 4/24, $12 general admission, free with Harvard ID
Brattle Theatre
40 Brattle St.
Cambridge, MA
02138