BEHIND CONVENT WALLS (WITHIN CONVENT WALLS)(INTERNO DI UN CONVENTO)

Italy, 1977, 96 minutes, Colour.
Ligia Branice, Marina Pierro, Gabriella Giacobbe.
Directed by Walerian Borowczyk.

Behind Convent Walls (Within Convent Walls) (Interno Di Un Convento) is a salacious title for a film by Walerian Borowczyk. Borowczyk is a Polish filmmaker who has made most of his features in France. One of his most significant was the mediaeval story, Blanche. In the late '70s he made a number of films exploring the relationship between old myths and modern myths, the erotic implications of these stories and their neurotic overtones. This became more explicit in his succession of films.

His Immoral Tales take bizarre situations e.g. The Borgias, a St. Therese of Lisieux-type maiden of late 19th century Catholicism and explored hypothetically the relationship of the religious and the erotic.

He did this also in his fable, The Beast, in which he had a bizarre interpretation, from the 18th century and from the 20th for the old story of Beauty and the Beast. In this film he takes a story by Stendhal, Promenades dans Rome. However, the treatment is very specifically Borowczyk's. The films have become more explicit and explicitly sensual as the years have gone on. In fact, many reviewers found his treatment in this film so exaggerated that they thought it farcical and that it superseded his serious intent of exploring the character of a proper nun in a scandalous convent who encounters an attractive young man and whose life is completely changed. The film is a satire, blends the exploitive with some interesting psychological observations of repressed religion.

1. The overall impact of the film and its treatment of religion and convent life? The purpose of the film, serious, satirical, exploitive? For what audience? European, international?

2. The stature of Stendhal and his story? Stendhal’s exploration of religion and repression? The Italian setting? The manner of Borowczyk's adaptation, the Polish director with his background, working in France and Italy? The style of his films, visual beauty, a concern with detail? The close observation of decor, furniture etc.? The comparison with slackness in plot writing? Carelessness in editing? His obsession with religion and the erotic? Psychological insight? Questions of morality, private and public? Hypocrisy and integrity?

3. Technical aspects of the film: the quality of colour photography, Italian locations? The emphasis on interiors and the detail of bric-a-brac, decoration? The hand held camera? Editing and effects? The contribution of the score, style? Organ music and songs?

4. The '70s and thews of cover-ups and the uncovering of scandals and hypocrisy? Questions of scandal, standards, expectations? Commitment and dedication of religious and clergy? Scandalous behaviour in comparison with ideals? The confessor and his preoccupations with the opening of the door rather than deeper issues? The Bishop and his investigation, attitude towards individuals, covering of the scandal?

5. Audience expectations of convents, of nuns? Of religious observance? Prayer, chastity, enclosure, community life, charity? The impact of repression? How realistically was the film presented ? the emphasis on the absurd, fantasy and satire? Satire as a symbol for deep realities?

6. The importance of the period: the convent itself, houses, piety and repression? The influence of the period and standards?

7. Themes of religion and piety ? the chapel, religious observance during meals, silence, enclosure, confession, prayer, relationship to Christ and His influence? The observance, disobedience, disarray?

8. The oppression of the Abbess? Her noble lineage, the motivation in running the convent, her reason for being there? Aristocracy and clashes with other nuns? A reflection of class structures of the 19th. century? Her obsession with supervision, her spying, her swordstick? The breaking of the mirrors? Her assertion of her authority? Her prying unhealthily into the scandals of the convent? The calling her antichrist? Her control of the confessor? The build-up to the poisoning, her sexual preoccupations, her bedroom, the violence of her death? The crisis that it precipitated?

9. The relationship of oppression and piety? The lack of vocation of the women in the convent, false vocations and their collapse?

10. The picture of the nuns and the attractive actresses chosen to portray them? The visual impact of the beautiful women, as nuns, sexual behaviour? The opening sequences in the chapel, the scandals? The butcher and his copulation with the cook? The lovers? The pregnant nun? The focus on the nun with the phallus, the pornographic drawings? The attention to detail and its cumulative effect? The build-up to the night of the Abbess' death and the scandals, the opening of the door? The ignorance of the women in the convent, their passions and natural urges, lack of moral standards and understanding? A blend of absurdity and reality?

11. The director's treatment of the nuns' behaviour? obscene, semi-pornographic, exploitive or not? The nuns and their behaviour in the chapel, nudity, lesbianism, seductions? The background of erotica? the phallus, the violin-playing, the nude yoga? The swordstick? The old nun and her spying? Confessions? What was this saying about aspects of Christianity, of religion?

12. The characterisation of Clara and her goodness, primness? Her being scandalised at the behaviour? Her relationship to the Abbess and her complaints to her? The impact of Rodrigo and her resistance to him, spurning him? Did the film sufficiently indicate her motivation for going out of the convent? The sexual experience and its deep effect on her, the attention to detail in this sequence? Her defying the convent, the nuns, the confessor, the Bishop? Madness and death?

13. The build-up of the character of Clara and her behaviour as symbolising the story? The importance then of the close-up and length of the sequence with Rodrigo?

14. How well defined were the characters of the other nuns? The character of the lover, the butcher?

15. The confessor and his role in the convent, his reaction to the information about the Abbess' death? His introduction of Rodrigo, lack of control of him? Rodrigo and his being in the convent, drawn to Clara, his seduction and behaviour?

16. The death of the Abbess and the chaos ensuing ? as symbolised in the pursuit of the butcher and the violence? Clara and her descent into madness? The birth of the child?

17. The visit of the Bishop as an attempt to restore order and sanity? In his investigations, interrogations? The motivation for his silence about the scandal?

18. The effect of an introduction into a mad world and its challenge to presuppositions and views ? especially about religion, honesty, sexuality and passion?