Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun

Innocent 15-year-old Maria Rosalea (Susan Hemingway) attracts the attentions of the corrupt satanist Father Vicente (William Berger). Under the pretext of saving Maria's soul he convinces her widowed mother to have her girl enter the Serra D'Aires convent, ruled by his partner-in-crime, Mother Superior Alma AKA "The Supreme Priestess" (Ana Zanatti).

After being subjected to a catalogue of abuses, Maria attempts to have one of the other nuns smuggle out a letter to her mother, but is betrayed, leading to further punishment. Then, after being molested by Lucifer himself (Herbert Fux) she manages to escape, and goes to the mayor for help. Rather than taking Maria to the inquisitor, however, he returns her to the Convent. Father Vicente and Mother Alma then decide to call on the inquisitor themselves, presenting Maria as the evildoer…

Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun is another in a growing list of Jesus Franco films that can be presented to the nay-sayer as evidence of the man's genuine ability.

Whether it was Swiss producer Erwin C. Dietrich giving Franco adequate (but still limited) resources to work with or making an effort to restrain the Spaniard's worst excesses, zoom happy camerawork and out of focus shots are conspicuous in their absence. Instead the director and his cinematographer, Peter Baumgartner, produce a steady procession of beautifully lit and framed painterly compositions that evoke a real sense of time and place, with this impression reinforced by composer Walter Baumgartner's quasi-religious classical score and the deliciously ironic songs of praise that accompany every scene of torture and degredation.

Thematically the film has much in common with other Franco works. If you didn't know that the story was adapted (by Dietrich) from Mariana Alcoforado's 17th century Lettres Portugaises and could ignore the almost happy ending, you could easily view it as another De Sade entry, exploring as it does familiar themes of religious hypocrisy and the syllogism between power and its abuses. Similarly the parallels between nunsploitation and the WIP film are obvious even before one considers how the nun's quarters are invariably referred to as "cells" or how much time Maria spends in solitary confinement of one form or another.

Perhaps the thing that really makes the film, however, is the quality of the performances. Susan Hemingway's accomplishments as Maria are impressive by anyone's standards, as can be seen by a comparison with Romina Power as Justine in Franco's De Sade adaptation of the same name: Where Power was singularly inexpressive, doing little more than flashing her doe eyes without a hint of intelligence or comphension behind them, Hemingway is utterly and terrifyingly convincing in her suffering.

It's worth noting the effect this appears to have had on Franco himself: Whereas he would normally delight in his voyeurism, focussing on the pudenda because "it's the first place I look" here he adopts a surprisingly distanced, detached and cautious approach in depicting the tortures inflicted on Hemingway, almost as if he felt guilty or uncomfortable at showing what would have been run of the mill for his partner Lina Romay in a WIP entry like Barbed Wire Dolls. (In passing, note the coincidental similarity between Maria Rosalea's name and Romay's real name, Rosa Maria Almirall.)

Hemingway may be first amongst equals but it's hard to fault both William Berger, who expertly conveys the sense of a once decent man corrupted by power and shows he could do so much more than the unchallenging genre roles he was tended to be saddled with demanded, and Ana Zanatti, who brings a rare intensity to her role yet manages to avoid veering into pantomime satanist mode.

Fans of Pasolini's Decameron and Salo should seek this one out, while fans of Borowczyk's Blanche and Behind Convent Walls probably don't need to be told…

VIP's Region 0 NTSC DVD of Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun is presented as the second entry in their ongoing Jesus Franco collection, which will ultimately encompass all 15 titles the director produced under the aegis of Erwin C Dietrich's Elite/Ascot company.

The quality of the presentation is outstanding. The restored 1.85:1 16:9 enhanced print has a couple of moments that are less than stellar – a bit of ghosting and some artefacting with an awkward surface – but these cannot really detract from an otherwise beautiful transfer which is clean and exhibits vibrant, well-defined colours. Audio, with a choice of English, German, Italian and Spanish dubbed tracks – oddly, there is no French language track nor any subtitles – is clear and free from hiss or distortion, with dialogue and score loud and proud.

The restorers achievements are celebrated in the first of the extras, a DVD production report identical to that found on the Jack the Ripper disc, and become all the more apparent when one views the trailer gallery, where the contrast between the new, restored titles – Jack, Love Letters itself – and the old, beat-up trailers for future releases like Barbed Wire Dolls shows the sort of material VIP are working with. (The full list of trailers: Jack the Ripper, Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun, Isla the Wicked Warden, Porno Shock, The Devilish Sisters, Blue Rita – the oddest of the lot by the looks of things – Doriana Grey and Barbed Wire Dolls.)

Whereas Franco was noticeably missing from the Jack the Ripper DVD, he's present here – along with Lina Romay, Herbert Fux and Dietrich – in a short interview selection, boding well for the likelihood of getting new tidbids of Franco's wit and wisdom in future releases.

The package is rounded off by short biographies and filmographies for Franco, Dietrich, William Berger, Fux and Susan Hemingway (who seems to have all but disappeared off the face of the earth).

All told, one has no hesitation in recommending this DVD to the Franco fan, along with future releases should they match or exceed its quality.