DARK HABITS/ ENTRE TINIEBLAS

Spain, 1983, 114 minutes, Colour.
Cristina Sanchez Pascual, Julieta Serrano, Marisa Paredes, Carmen Maura, Manuel Zarzo.
Directed by Pedro Almodovar.

Pedro Almodovar has been the most successful Spanish director to emerge in Spain as well as on the world stage and screen after the Franco era.

He has always had a wry sense of humour, always a touch of spoof and deeper satire. Much of this concerns sexuality, coming from the director’s own homosexuality.

By the 1990s, Almodovar was a world figure in cinema, winning many awards leading to Oscars and such classics as All About My Mother and Talk to Her. Almodovar continued to make significant films in the first two decades of the 21st-century.

This one goes back to 1983, to his wilder days, to a rather lurid imagination. The setting is a convent where the nuns have significantly harsh names. There is also a mixture of the different vices in the convent, especially in lesbian relationships and manipulations of power. There is also a priest chaplain who does become involved with the nuns.

If audiences want to see a film made by a writer-director with some Catholic upbringing in a restrictive Spain and his letting loose on all kinds of imagination about nuns and what they might get up to – and beyond – this is the film to see.

1. Pedro Almodovar film? The 1980s and his reputation as an Enfant Terrible? His further career?

2. Spanish filmmaking, after the death of Franco, breaking with traditions? The role of the church? Reactions to the church? Acceptance of the church and devotions? Critique? Parody? Beyond parody? The response of religious sensibilities?

3. Realism/fantasy/spoof? The musical score? The singing, the dancing?

4. The title, the focus of nuns, wearing their habits, the dark side? Audience expectations about nuns’ behaviour? The old habits, no connection with renewal in the church after Vatican II? The number of nuns, the Superior, the community, obedience? The nuns doing their own thing, excerpts of prayer, relationship with God, celebrating the mass and the sacraments, devotions? Yet with the touch of spoof?

5. The Superior, her setting the tone, the sisters and their mission, the redemption of sinners in need? Taking the girls, the accommodation, the possibilities for reform? The nuns and their attachment to their guests?

6. The introduction of drug themes, heroin, injections, sharing drugs? The rationalisation by the nuns? The vulgar names, manure, rat, snake…? The sister who wrote the Mills and Boon stories and are wanting recognition, discussing her plots, putting down their merits? The sisters and their stories, the African connection, the picture of the Tarzan boy? Their emotions? Sexual attachments?

7. The variety of personalities, the younger nuns, their behaviour? Intensity?

8. Yolanda and her story, the bar, the police and her escape, the dealer boyfriend and his death? The other women coming to the convent? The connection with the Marquise?

9. The police, their arrival, interrogations?

10. The Superior, her attachment to Yolanda? Emotional, the concert for her feast day, her response? The dress? Yolanda going and the superior’s grief? Consoled by the nun for the final close-up?

11. The concert, the plans, the performance, the nuns and the music and singing, the exuberance, accompanying Yolanda? The priest and his presence?

12. The Marquise, the connection with the nuns, her visits and participation?

13. The priest, in the sacristy, talking with the nuns, My Fair Lady, smoking in the sacristy, smoking during the Mass, the communion, his vestments? The priest at the concert? His grey suit and shirt? The sister requesting to hear confessions? The final confession, Sister Snake, the mutual love, her talking about sewing and his learning to sew to be with her, communion, love, the responsibility of their vows? And the interruption at the confessional by the other sister?

14. The connection with Africa, the sisters going there, the report, the letters, the photo?

15. The narrative just stopping, the image with the Superior and her being consoled?

16. The trend for Almodovar films, bright colour, soap opera, spoof, melodrama?