La Religieuse (Suzanne Simonin la Religieuse de Denis Diderot)

Suzanned is forced, through lack of a dowry, to enter a convent where she is subjected to semi-starvation and beatings. Her efforts to annul her vow fail, but she is transferred to another convent where the Mother Superior makes lesbian overtures to her until she escapes with the help of a priest, who the attempts to rape her, and she has to endure new sufferings on the outside. Taken from a novel by Diderot (1760), this film was initially banned in France on grounds of anti-clericalism, although it was shown at Cannes in the interim. It is directed with austere detachment and an authentic sense of claustrophobia, with the suggestion that the corruption and cruelty lurking behind the façades of religion is a metaphor for the world at large. (Foreign Film Guide)