The Nun

Directed by JACQUES RIVETTE

Starring ANNA KARINA LISELOTTE PULVER FRANCINE BERGÉ

1966

Released 10 SEPT

Blu-ray

If you look back at the formative writings of the ‘Young Turk’ critics involved in, Jacques Rivette was especially enamoured by the movies coming out of Japan in the 1950s. He wrote passionately on the work of Kenji Mizoguchi, whose work explores the humiliations and degradations suffered by women at the hands of men, the law, institutions and society at large. It makes his second feature, 1966’s , feel like an earnest homage to the late master, even down to its flat framing and use of musical cues which draw on Asian instrumentation. The righteous anger found in Denis Diderot’s 1760 novel makes its way to the screen in this intense and almost comically bleak admonition of the papacy which lands punch after punch. A couple decide to offload their daughter Suzanne (Anna Karina) on a nunnery and coerce her into accepting her vows – even though she claims not to be a believer.