Lennie_G

A Nun's Story must be primarily appreciated as a cinematic achievement of direction and cinematography. The detailed filming of Catholic liturgy and the scenes in the Congo make it compelling. However, make no mistake - A Nun's Story is anti Catholic. The story spares no opportunity to dramatize an unforgiving rule-governed environment of a convent and the humiliation visited upon Audrey Hepburn's character. She is repeatedly made to feel inferior and guilty. This serves to substantiate the image of the church as a dispassionate and controlling institution. When Audrey Hepburns character finally decides to leave the church because she can no longer reconcile her desire to act in a moral way while observing the strictures of faith within the convent, the film makers create scenes in which she is made to feel a failure. My experience with religious people is an odds with this portrayal. In the last scenes, the movie deteriorates into another one of thousands of Nazi movies that demonstrates our heroine was right and the church was wrong.

The various synopses of this movie would lead you to believe it is about a tragic romance. Fundamentally it is an expose and castigation of the British class system through the lens of a love story. As such, it does a terrific job. It is dramatic, human, and suspenseful. Lawrence Harvey's acting prowess is on display as the vulnerable yet resentful young man trying to break free of his class. His seething performance gives the movie an edge that is not only dramatic, but unpredictable. British film has a long and successful history of dramatic movies. It is deserved, especially its production actors.

There are those movie reviewers who keep looking for something very different. I think this may explain the high ratings for Faces. For 1968 this movie was probably groundbreaking. There are scenes of verbal cruelty, of sex talk and sexual seduction. There are scenes of alcoholic behavior and silly laughter with rough-housing between men and women. In short, the movie is full of overacting and histrionics. A lot of this seems to setup the serious scenes toward the end of the movie. In that sense the viewer should watch it till the end.

There are some very clumsy segues and cuts in the action. It is difficult to believe editing wouldn't have taken care of this. If you're a person of the sixties as I am, you might be expected to appreciate or even like this film. I didn't.