Fight the power sisters!

Flavia The Heretic (1974)

I have to say I'm a bit puzzled. I hadn't seen this before but of course heard a great deal about it as it's kind of notorious among the fans of the exploitation genre. It's described as a brutal, sleazy and straight forward nunsploitation, but to be honest I was wondering did I really see the same movie as everyone else. This movie reminded me more of The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) than Behind Convent Walls (1978) or any other nunsploitation flick like that. I mean sure the main character is a nun and sure there are quite a few sexual themes in it and yes it even has some nasty scenes and a bit of violence, but it's basically a historical piece about a woman who fights back the oppressors. And with that it even manages to raise quite a few thought provoking points, another thing that's very uncommon for nunsploitation. So yes I liked the story quite a bit, but the movie surely isn't without flaws. The style is quite uneven, at parts it's very straight forward exploitation like and at parts it's very stylish somewhat even surrealistic. The pacing is fast, so you won't get bored at any point. The cast is quite good, Florinda Bolkan being the most notable of course, but Maria Casares as sister Agatha was quite great also. The low budget shows at parts quite badly, but it really didn't matter that much. If you can call this nunsploitation then this is by far the best of it's kind, but as a historical drama it's not bad either. By the way the Shameless DVD was annoyingly letterboxed into a 4:3 frame which means when you watch it on a widescreen telly you'll have only a small image in center of your screen with tons of black all around it. Weird thing as thus far all of the Shameless releases have been very good quality.
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