Flavia la défroquée

Reportedy based on actual historical events, this disturbingly violent, bloody, and shocking period epic sustains viewer interest by creating a verisimilitude missing in the majority of films set in a remote era. Ms. Bolkan's portrayal of the rebellious nun is a tour de force. Her gradual transformation in character from an obedient if unwilling complicitor in social injustices of her day is adeptly evidenced by telling sequences: her witnessing of the hated local Duke's casual rapist activity, her forbidden love affair with a Jew, her criminal defection to the invading Moslem forces of the sensual Prince Ahmed (Anthony Corlan) There are some painfully realistic gory sequences (human flaying) in this film that are not for the squeamish, but viewers with strong stomachs and an interest in medieval history should find ample interest. Deserves to be seen, if only as an antidote to Hollywood depictions of the medieval world.

Young nun Flavia (Florinda B0lkan) was a women's libber before there was even such a thing. Set in Southern Italy in the 1400s, this film sees its titular character striking a blow for the fairer sex, her fight for equality stemming from her troubled childhood, when her father hacked the head off a Moslem soldier she took a shine to, and then forced her into a convent to spend her days in religious contemplation. Parenting wasn't his strong point.

But the life of a nun is not for rebellious Flavia, and after witnessing a friend of hers being tortured for wanton acts (the old 'hot oil and nipple slicing' treatment), she flees the convent in the company of male pal Abraham. The pair don't get far though, and Flavia is returned to the nunnery and Abraham flung into jail. A miffed Flavia seeks revenge for her mistreatment, and that of her sisters, and teams up with an army of Moslem invaders to make her father and other miscreants atone for their wrongdoings.

Don't be fooled by Flavia The Heretic's apparent female empowerment message... the film's women's lib device is simply there to try and lend proceedings an air of respectability. They shouldn't have bothered. This is very obviously an exploitation flick first and foremost, with scenes of rape, abuse, misogyny and murder, and as such is unlikely to find favour with staunch feminists. If it's sex, violence and general deviancy you're after, then this one offers such dubious delights as forced sex in a pig-sty, a graphic spot of horse castration (symbolic of Flavia's desire to castrate all men), nun urination, decapitation, a drug-fuelled orgy (during which a naked nun climbs inside the gutted carcass of a cow!), a man being lowered ass-first onto a spear, and skin-flaying. Unfortunately, director Gianfranco Mingozzi's pretenses cause the film to drag in places, meaning that those looking for a consistently satisfying slice of sleaze and depravity may also come away feeling a tad disappointed.

5.5/10, rounded up to 6 for IMDb.

Whoops, it happened again! I was all set to watch the harmless sounding Violent Bloodbath when my finger slipped off the keyboard, grabbed this DVD and accidentally put in the in the DVD player. Fathers of teenage daughters during the early 15th century: When you notice that your teenage daughter is taking a bit of a shine to the last surviving muslim invader on a bloody battlefield, it's probably not a good idea to capture that invader, behead him, then stick his head on a pike right in front of her. That kind of things makes a lasting impression, and throwing your daughter into a convent shortly afterwards isn't going to help the situation. Flavia the Heretic is a grim document of what occurs when this happens.

Years later Flavia is still a sexually repressed nun who is about to learn a lesson that all men are bastards. The hard way. Not only does her father continually berate her, she also witnesses an arrogant Duke raping a farm girl and get away with it, and her nun friend tortured to death for letting her sexual urges get the better of her. Flavia begins to question why the world is male dominated, from religion to war to God himself, and bitter rage wells up inside. Seeing your best friend's nipple sliced off by your father's cronies will do that to you.

Of course, this being a film by Gianfranco Mingozzi, who thought it was okay to have someone drive a car into a herd of sheep in the film Island of Crime, we also get to see a horse getting castrated while Flavia watches. As Ralf Wiggum would say in the Simpsons: the castration stands for obviousness.

With the encouragement of a grizzled old nun, Flavia begins to break free from her male-dominated shackles and seeks to destroy the convent and the all the men who have supressed her all her life, except good guy Claudio Cassanelli, who plays her friendly Jew sidekick. Flavia achieves this by doing what every woman does: by joining forces with an invading muslim army and hitting it off with their leader, then using his army to kill everyone.

Whilst having a very serious point to make about male dominance and the various ways male society has crushed and controlled women in various ways (and the sad fact it seems to happen in most cultures), the film still has plenty of exploitation elements that go way beyond the boundaries of taste. For every angry speech about female power you have the rape-happy Duke getting revenge bummed by a mob of Islamic soldiers. The part that takes the biscuit for me is when Flavia drugs the entire convent and everything breaks down into a surreal orgy where one woman jumps into, that's into, the empty carcass of a bull hanging from a ceiling. When she jumps back out again and hits her head on the still attached knackers of the bull, I really did start to wonder why I watch these things.

That said, beyond all the symbolism, naked women, and suspicious absence of lesbian activity there's a good, serious film. Florinda Bolkan is no trash actress, and Claudio Cassanelli, moody as usual, supports her well.

So there you go. Flava Flav: The Movie.

This is the most notorious of the "nunsploitation" movies but it's also very atypical of the genre (if "nunsploitation" can be called a genre). For one thing it is serious, believable, and fairly historically accurate. For another thing it generally avoids being merely crass exploitation. There is sex and nudity but it is all in the context of the film. There is also A LOT of violence, but it is truly unpleasant and ugly violence--it is obviously not meant to simply titillate the audience. (I actually saw the edited version but I doubt it is any less powerful--what you picture in your mind when you realize what is happening on screen is at least as terrible as anything that could have been achieved with cheesy 1970's special effects). This film could also be considered part of the "rape-revenge" genre except that after the rape and revenge there is in turn yet more revenge against the avenging woman, and each time the violence escalates a little more until all the characters are tainted and the movie ends up being a wholesale condemnation of human cruelty and a powerful statement on the ultimate futility of violence. I'm sure many people will find this movie tasteless or offensive but when you consider how many movies--especially mainstream Hollywood movies--glorify and romanticize violence, presenting it as a valid way to resolve any problem, you truly realize how courageous and refreshing a movie like this is.

Too many sources routinely lump this thought-provoking period drama in part based on historical fact together with the superficially similar "nunsploitation" which was a mainstay in '70s Euro trash cinema, overlooking the righteous anger that drives the whole endeavor. Perhaps coincidentally it was also director Gianfranco Mingozzi's singular attempt at narrative film-making outside of many well-received documentaries.

Safely set within a historical context, FLAVIA charts the growing rebellion of an early 15th century Italian nun (Florinda Bolkan's career performance, even surpassing her sterling work in Lucio Fulci's devastating DON'T TORTURE A DUCKLING), locked away in convent by her not so nobleman father in a desperate attempt to curb the girl's budding sensuous nature. Wondering why women are relegated to secondary roles at best in life as in holy scripture, she is confronted by ways in which male domination can rupture female lives, inspiring revolt fueled by the ranting of semi-crazed older Sister Agatha (indelibly portrayed by veteran actress Maria Casarès from Marcel Carné's LES ENFANTS DU PARADIS) and - more constructively - by a Muslim invasion. Joining the oppressors and perhaps unwittingly manipulating them to do her bidding, Flavia truly becomes the outcast she already felt herself to be, with expected tragic results.

With its breathtaking widescreen compositions by Alfio Contini, who shot Michelangelo Antonioni's ZABRISKIE POINT, this is an uncompromising and austere account of one woman's fierce yet ultimately futile fight against patriarchal society which allotted her no rights beyond childbearing or whoring as Sister Agatha wryly remarks. A lengthy drug-induced fantasy sequence clearly modeled on Ken Russell's otherwise far more flamboyant DEVILS notwithstanding, the movie turns out relatively stingy in the skin department, making something of a mockery out of its semi-porn reputation. This is a serious work deserving rediscovery and restoration of its unjustly tarnished reputation.