This movie isn't sure where it belongs. In part it is a well-realized historical period picture based on a novel by Stendahl. The photography is very fine, as are the settings and costumes.
Then it's also a movie that exists for the many opportunities to show nuns and novices without clothing, often involved in some sort of sexual activity. A somewhat trite them runs through this level, something about the unnatural state of confinement and the irresistible need for pleasure that nuns must feel. So we see kissing and fondling and masturbation with a hand-carved dildo and several tasteful scenes of copulation with men. The corollary theme is that sexual deprivation in women produces either a grimly authoritarian repressionthe abbess (Gabriela Giacobbe) who carries a cane with a concealed sword she uses to find contraband in the beddingor madness, as in the case of the nun who is convinced Jesus has taken her to bed and whose rose-thorn wounds she represents as stigmata. Or in the case of one of the main characters, Sister Clara (Ligia Branice), who begins the story as a truly devout nun, but in the last twenty minutes she seeks out the handsome artist Rodrigo (Howard Ross) and has ecstatic sex in the convent courtyard, crying out phrases that mirror the devotional language she's used earlier as a mystical bride of Christ. Then, inexplicably, she is mad, exposing herself with defiant, mocking, leering words and laughter to the priest, and then she is dead of the same poison that killed the abbess, as is the other nun, Sister Martina (Loredano Martínez), who'd been having sex with the virile male helper Silva (Alessandro Partexano) and who gave the abbess the poison she thought was just opium useful for mellowing her out a little, and opened the door for her lover as well. The cardinal, Clara's uncle, arrives and prays for assistance in ensuring that no word of this business will go beyond the convent walls, and he flashes a wicked grin. The nun earlier shown in late pregnancy smiles a different smile as she nurses her newborn baby; it is typical of the contradictions of this movie that the abbess, so firmly opposed to all forms of carnality, is kind to the pregnant nun.
The third element derives from making the film a vehicle for Ligia Branice, who happened to be married to the director. She has a striking, tapered face, with wide-set eyes and a generous mouth. Somehow she manages to acquire more and more exaggeratedly sexy make-up as the movie progresses. Her range as an actor is limited, however. She does fine as a quiet, devout nun, but as a lover and a madwoman she grimaces and chews the scenery, as they say, looking a little like a slim female impersonator trying to mimic Sophia Loren at fever pitch. She's much better than she is in Blanche, but she's still the weakest part of the film.
Then it's also a movie that exists for the many opportunities to show nuns and novices without clothing, often involved in some sort of sexual activity. A somewhat trite them runs through this level, something about the unnatural state of confinement and the irresistible need for pleasure that nuns must feel. So we see kissing and fondling and masturbation with a hand-carved dildo and several tasteful scenes of copulation with men. The corollary theme is that sexual deprivation in women produces either a grimly authoritarian repressionthe abbess (Gabriela Giacobbe) who carries a cane with a concealed sword she uses to find contraband in the beddingor madness, as in the case of the nun who is convinced Jesus has taken her to bed and whose rose-thorn wounds she represents as stigmata. Or in the case of one of the main characters, Sister Clara (Ligia Branice), who begins the story as a truly devout nun, but in the last twenty minutes she seeks out the handsome artist Rodrigo (Howard Ross) and has ecstatic sex in the convent courtyard, crying out phrases that mirror the devotional language she's used earlier as a mystical bride of Christ. Then, inexplicably, she is mad, exposing herself with defiant, mocking, leering words and laughter to the priest, and then she is dead of the same poison that killed the abbess, as is the other nun, Sister Martina (Loredano Martínez), who'd been having sex with the virile male helper Silva (Alessandro Partexano) and who gave the abbess the poison she thought was just opium useful for mellowing her out a little, and opened the door for her lover as well. The cardinal, Clara's uncle, arrives and prays for assistance in ensuring that no word of this business will go beyond the convent walls, and he flashes a wicked grin. The nun earlier shown in late pregnancy smiles a different smile as she nurses her newborn baby; it is typical of the contradictions of this movie that the abbess, so firmly opposed to all forms of carnality, is kind to the pregnant nun.
The third element derives from making the film a vehicle for Ligia Branice, who happened to be married to the director. She has a striking, tapered face, with wide-set eyes and a generous mouth. Somehow she manages to acquire more and more exaggeratedly sexy make-up as the movie progresses. Her range as an actor is limited, however. She does fine as a quiet, devout nun, but as a lover and a madwoman she grimaces and chews the scenery, as they say, looking a little like a slim female impersonator trying to mimic Sophia Loren at fever pitch. She's much better than she is in Blanche, but she's still the weakest part of the film.