Images in a Convent
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"This film marks D'Amato's second entry into the 'nunsploitation' subgenre of trash films, after The Nun and the Devil in 1972 and it was followed by Convent of Sinners in 1986."--Sholem Stein |
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Images in a Convent (Immagini di un convento) is a 1979 sexploitation film by Italian cult filmmaker Joe D'Amato. It was an "indelicate" adaptation of La Religieuse.
The film belongs to the 'nunsploitation' subgenre. It contains strong scenes of graphic violence relating to demonic possession and is among few films containing original hardcore pornography that already passed Italian censorship in 1979 and were projected in some Italian cinemas. It includes explicit lesbianic depictions of digital penetration and cunnilingus.
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Plot
Behind the walls of a secluded convent, the nuns commit sexual acts at night with each other, while living in fear that their Mother Superior may learn of their transgressions.
One day, an injured man appears at the convent and the sisters take him in. One by one, the nuns become attracted to the man and take turns visiting his room at night. Unbeknownst to them, Satan has also entered the convent and is turning the nuns into horny sinners.
Finally, an exorcist is sent to the convent to drive out Satan and restore godliness to the monastery's lustful inhabitants.
Cast
Credited:
- Paola Senatore: Isabella
- Marina Hedman: suor Marta
- Paola Maiolini: suor Consolata
- Angelo Arquilla: Lieutenant Guido Bencio
- Aïché Nana: Sister Angela, the Mother Superior
- Maria Rosaria Riuzzi: Sister Giulia
- Giovanna Mainardi: Sister Veronica
- Ferrucio Fregonese: Cardinal Del Lario
- Plard Sylviane Anne Marie
- Pietro Zardini: Cesco, the gardener
- Brunello Chiodetti: Don Ascanio, Isabella's uncle
- Donald O'Brien: Father Arnoldo, the exorcist
Uncredited:
- Giuseppe Curia: one of the two bandits who rape Sister Marta
- Sisto Brunetti: the other banditTemplate:Sfn
Production
The film's working title was La casa del dio sconosciuto (literal translation: "The house of the unknown god"). Template:Sfn The initial cast as officially deposited was Gloria Guida as Isabella and Gabriele Tinti as Guido Bencio, Paola Arduini as Sister Lucrezia and Anna Maria Romoli as Sister Marta.Template:Sfn
Literary and cinematic influences
On the pages preceding the copy of the script deposited at the Ministerio Dello Spettacolo on February 24, 1979, it says that the film is "very loosely inspired by Prosper Mérimée's La Vénus d'Ille before quoting Blaise Pascal's saying, "The last function of reason is to recognize that there are an infinity of things which surpass it".Template:Sfn
The main cinematic influence was Walerian Borowczyk's Interno di un convento (1977; literally: Interior of a Convent; English title: Behind Convent Walls), which claimed to be influenced by Stendhal's Promenades romaines just as Immagini di un convento claims to be inspired by La Religieuse by Denis Diderot.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn However, the only parallels between the film and Diderot's novel are the general immorality of the clergy, the arrival of an aristocratic novice without vocation at a convent, and the wounded officer.Template:Sfn
Film connections
In 1986, D'Amato directed another nunsploitation film, Convent of Sinners.
Reception
When he first saw the film at the red light cinema "Il Filodrammatico" in Trieste, film critic Marco Giusti remembers being impressed, also because he did not expect real penetrations; "after all, it was about nuns...".Template:Sfn
