Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun

Tsk, tsk…. My poor, old and deeply religious granny should know what I'm watching here. Nunsploitation! Foxy looking nuns doing tricks with their willing and ravishing bodies, in blood-soaked and satanic-themed movies! Blasphemy, my old granny would call it…and she would be right as well. Call it what you want …it's still fun! It's pretty deranged to see a bunch of nuns bringing sacrifices to Satan. And it's even more messed up to see Lucifer actually appear then and sexually violate an innocent young disciple. Who else than Jess Franco could have been responsible for this? The Godfather of Sleaze tried out every subgenre of eurohorror in his long, fertile career and this stylish, well cinematographed film represents his bizarre nun-fantasies. A young girl named Marie – played by Susan Hemingway – is caught fooling around with her boyfriend by a frustrated priest. He intimidates her poor mother to force her into a convent. The nuns there, led by Alma Mater Ana Zanetti (who looks a lot like an exquisite version of Susan Sarandon, take unusual interest in her young and sensual body. Lovely convent this is! Mother Superior is a horny devil-worshipper and the priest is a perverted masturbator! Which brings me to the MESSAGE of this film! Yes indeed, message! Jess Franco's films don't often carry a message but this `Love Letters from a Portuguese Nun' does. Franco directly criticizes the historical hypocrisy of the Catholic Church and shows how Catholic superiors abused their powers. This really is one of Franco's finest achievements. Although the film exaggerates extremely when it comes to sleaziness and absurd situations, it also brings forward a lot of style and beauty. The acting is above average and the locations are beautifully chosen. The best aspect about the whole film is the truly magnificent music by Walter Baumgartner, who made a career out of filling exploitation soundtracks. Love Letters from a Portuguese Nun may not be top-quality cinema, but it shows a lot of goodwill and depth. And it's beautiful to look at. Hallelujah!

Jesus Franco's dark yet artistic sexploitation movie concerns Maria Rosalea (Susan Hemmingway), a fifteen year old girl, who is caught cavorting with her boyfriend by the devilish Father Vicente (William Berger). Vicente convinces Maria's poor and easily intimidated, God-fearing mother (Aida Vargas) to force Maria into a convent. Upon arriving at the convent Maria is subjected to numerous vile and sadistic sexual tortures, and it becomes increasingly clear that it is not God that these particular nuns worship.

It is fairly easy to speculate whether 'Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun' is a film with a message or not. It would appear to be a film damning the historical atrocities of the Catholic Church, and while perhaps over exaggerating the real truth (though one may never know for sure), the portrayal of how the Catholic Church abused it's power, particularly during the 16th-19th centuries, seems to be effectively represented here. In fact, to this very day, there is still news making the headlines about the darker side of religion, including the vile sexual abuse that is often covered up the Church itself and carried out by those who are supposed to spread the word of God. While not meaning to sound anti-religious, 'Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun' is a film that is not afraid to push the boundaries of acceptability all the way and condemn the wrong doings in the Church. Bordering on illegal, with frequent horrific representations of a fifteen year old girl naked and/or suffering, what can only be described as sadistic sexual abuse, 'Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun' is a gloomy, yet surprisingly powerful, artistic and thought-provoking film.

Although the scripting occasionally left a lot to be desired, particularly in the scenes involving the Prince of Portugal (Herman Jose), generally the script was very tight, and the dialogue enormously effective. It becomes very easy to empathise with Maria as she suffers the numerous horrid indignities. While I am unable to comment on the verbal acting ability of Susan Hemmingway in this film (as I watched the film with English dubbing), the physical performance of Susan was highly realistic and there is little way that one cannot feel sympathy for this poor, young girl. William Berger's physical performance was also of a high standard and it becomes very easy to feel contempt for this sleazy and perverted man. The confessional masturbation scene early in the movie showed exactly how depraved and corrupt this so-called `good man' was. Berger was also complimented by the addition of Ana Zanatti in the role of Mother Superior, Alma. Zanatti added a loathsome female character which seemingly exhibited more savagery than the despicable Vicente.

Although some may find the occasional scenes of lesbianism portrayed within the movie more titillating than necessary, they still maintain an artistic air and help create an image, for the viewer, of the real actions within the convent. There are numerous scenes of nudity and sexual acts, but the majority of these are more repulsive than erotic. Outside of the eroticism/sexual deviances, 'Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun' is generally aesthetically pleasing as it was shot in some beautiful locations, and featured many scenes of glorious gothic architecture. An early comment on how beautiful the Abbey featured in 'Love Letters.' rings so true, and serves to underline the ignorance to the truth that both the church, and the village as a whole possesses. This imaginative and artistically presented film is certainly worth viewing for fans of similar movies, particularly those who enjoy European arthouse eroticism. My rating for 'Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun' - 7/10.

Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun (1977)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

Fifteen-year-old Maria (Susan Hemingway) is caught by Father Vicente (William Berger) playing with her boyfriend in an innocent manor. The Father tells the girl's mother that she is possessed by Satan so the mother turns her over to a convent. Once there the girl realized that the Father as well as the main mother (Aida Vargas) are in pact with Satan and plan on turning her over to him. This isn't your typical nunsploitation film because it actually has a very strong message bashing the Catholic Church. A lot of these films are just out there to see lesbian nuns mess around and while we do get some of that here, the sexuality isn't the main goal. Franco is certainly trying to show the evils behind the walls of Catholic priests and this subject matter is certainly going to offend a lot of people just like it did when the film was originally released but after all the stories from the past five years it's easy to say this film and Franco were ahead of their time. Both Berger and Vargas turn in very strong performances and truly nasty ones as well. The entire film belongs to Hemingway who is simply brilliant here. Hemingway made a total of seven films in her career and all of them were with Franco, which I've watched six of. She's certainly a very good actress and it's a shame she got out of the business or was dumped by Franco but I've yet to hear any stories about what happened to her. She was around 15-years-old when she made this film so the scenes of her naked or being raped are going to turn a lot of people off but I think it brings a realistic nature to her performance as well as the film. There's nothing hardcore here but the scene where she is offered up to Satan is pretty disturbing. It appears Franco was working on a larger than normal budget here and he manages to turn over a very good looking film with some nice cinematography as well as a great music score. Franco has made a lot of exploitation films in his career but this isn't one of them. The message of the film is quite clear and very strong and in the end this ranks as one of the director's best films.

Father Vicente (William Berger) catches pretty 15-year-old Maria (Susan Hemingway) flirting with her boyfriend, and has her sent to a convent where he can keep a closer eye on her. No sooner than she is cloistered, Maria is subjected to abuse, ultimately being forced to take part in a Satanic orgy, Vicente and the nuns all being followers of the devil (who makes a special personal appearance to take Maria's virginity!).

I admit it: sometimes—okay, quite a lot of the time—I'm just not in the mood to labour over a really in-depth and informative movie review, and am just happy to rattle off some old rubbish to get it out of the way. I imagine this is how director Jess Franco must have tackled a lot of his films… just get the bloody thing in the can and start the next one. Sod the quality!

Not so, however, with Love Letters From A Portuguese Nun, which feels like the director actually tried to make something a little more stylish than his usual dross: the locations and scenery are beautiful, the cast are half decent (there's no Lina Romay, whose 'beauty' I simply cannot comprehend), and the cinematography is classier than usual (fewer rapid zooms and out of focus shots). Hell, even the title is fancy schmancy.

Unfortunately, at the end of the day, behind this semblance of style, it's business as usual for Franco, his film ultimately being another predictable slice of sleaze, with the vaguest of plots to string together the obligatory scenes of lesbianism, masturbation, orgies and torture, all of which eventually gets very boring. As Franco films go, this is far from his worst, but there are far better nunsploitation films out there (School of the Holy Beast and Sister Emanuelle spring to mind).

Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun is a surprisingly professionally made movie from the king of sleaze, Jess Franco. Usually with Franco, you can count on a very thin plot and loads of sex (usually involving lesbians), but this time it's the other way round. Of course, there's still lots of room for sex (no need to worry, Franco fans) but it's definitely a secondary element to the plot. This film fits into the corner of the horror genre known as 'nunsploitation'. This is my first ever taste of nunsploitation, so I cant comment on the niche on the whole; but if it turns out to be as interesting as it's title, it should be pretty good! This film follows Maria, a sixteen year old girl that is forced into a convent after the convent's leader manipulates her mother into thinking she's in league with the devil and destined for Hell. However, this isn't a Christian convent and rather than worshipping God, these guys are actually a band of Satanists! After being forced to perform sinful acts with various members of the convent (including the Dark Prince himself...), Maria tries to escape the convent.

The message in this film is actually rather potent, and it exposes the hypocrisy of religion and, more specifically; the Christian church. The film manages to go even further than that too, with the idea of a sex scandal being pretty much timeless. Sex scandals are still a big part of our society's news stories, and I'm sure that they will continue to be; which gives this film an element of immortality where it's plot is concerned. The sex scenes are surprisingly brief, which is very surprising after watching the likes of Vampyros Lesbos and Bare Breasted Countess. The photography is smooth and nice to look at, leading me to believe that Jess Franco actually wanted to make a film, rather than just another of his usual quickies. Jess Franco made a lot of films over his career, a lot of which are forgettable rubbish; but this film hints that the man may have a lot more talent than his list of directorial credits suggests. Despite some silly sequences (such the Devil love making scene), this film is professionally handled and just well done on the whole. Maybe if Franco had put more effort into the quality of his films rather than the quantity, he would have a few masterpieces under his belt.