Behind Convent Walls

Somewhere in continental Europe, sometime in the early 19th century Abbess Flavia Orsini (Gabriella Giacobbe) struggles to keep her young nuns away from temptations of the flesh. But it is a sisyphean struggle. Many of her charges, like Sister Martina of the house of Frangipani did not choose the life of a nun and are present only under duress. Worse, the Mother Superior's determined repression of the sensual urges of her charges ultimately leads to turning even her more loyal underlings, like her own niece Sister Clara (Ligia Branice) against her, with predictably tragic results…

Though ostensibly adapted from Stendahl's Roman Walks, Walerian Borowczyk's Behind Convent Walls feels quintessentially the work of its filmic auteur, essaying themes familiar from Goto Island of Love onwards – the corrupting influence of power, literal and metaphorical entrapment, the struggle between the 'natural' and the cultural and, above all, a detached, ironic yet celebratory detailing of carnal pleasures that blurs the boundaries between art and pornography – along with his distinctive mise en scene and repertory company including Branice and the remarkable Marina Pierro.

But while Borowczyk's brilliant compositional sense and facility for picking out mannerist details are evident, they are here modulated by the instability of the hand-held camerawork – no static tableaux these – and the intense, luminenscent blinding white light that bathes most every scene and – perhaps – further serves to signify the impossibility of the Abbess's maintaining this hermetically sealed world from the way it floods in inexorably through every available opening to the outside. (And, as such, provides an inversion of the Exterminating Angel derived scenario of Borowczyk's later Dr Jekyll and his Women, where the characters seem almost supernaturally unable to leave their house despite the depradations/liberations of the titular monster/hero.)

As with several Jesus Franco's entries from the same mid-70s period(though, not curiously, the Spaniard's similarly themed but formally rather conventional Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun) the result is a profound challenge to conventional film aesthetics, a piece that could almost be called Dogme avant la lettre on account of the way it gives rise to the same strange, beautiful, stochastic imperfections.

Even the film's most notorious sequence, in which a nun masturbates with a dildo with the image of Christ on it, works as a level far beyond simple shock value: The dildo, after all, was crafted from a suitably sized chunk of wood with a piece of broken glass, crashing through the window like mana from heaven, while the nun's contortions with an mirror (the contraband item that first attracts the Abbess's attentions) so she can see the face of her lord as she masturbates resonates ironically with the scholastic proof a visiting young nobleman (Euro-trash favourite Howard Ross/Renato Rossini) gives, through optics and mirrors, for the existence of the holy trinity.

This Region 2 DVD from Noveaux Pictures differs from previous UK releases in being uncut, reinstating the aforementioned dildo insert footage.

There's one moment at the 55 minute 45 second mark where the image and sound judder and a hair on the telecine a minute or so later, but these flaws are not enough to seriously detract from what is otherwise a decent – if deliberately imperfect – widescreen transfer.

The audio is more problematic. Nouveaux have opted to present the film in English dub, necessarily coarsening and cheapening the artistic effect and emphasising the bawdy comedy aspect – which is present, to be sure – a touch too much. (It's also an interesting marketing decision: One suspects that with a film like this, straddling the art/porn debate, the more conventional ploy would be to strive for the higher ground through keeping the piece in the original language and providing subtitles.)

The centrepiece extra is a ten minute featurette, "Behind the Walls", with Borowczyk expert/retrospective programmer Daniel Bird and Mondo Erotico webmaster Marc Morris, who also directs. Needless to say both men know their stuff – that cinematographer Luciano Tovoli didn't just work with Argento on Suspiria but also with Antonioni on The Passenger / Professione: Reporter for instance – and provide an excellent introduction to the film and Borowczyk's ouevre more generally.

"No one is really aware of Borowcyzk's films," comments Bird. And that's the real tragedy here…