Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun (1977)

Excellent but underrated film

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

"Die Liebesbriefe einer portugiesischen Nonne" or "Love Letters from a Portuguese Nun" is a Swiss / West German collaboration and the film is in German language. The year is 1977, so this one will have its 40th anniversary next year. The director is Jesús Franco and he is known for his violent, pornographic works from that era back then. So this one here is all about a nun who ends up in a monastery where almost nobody seems to be a really devout Christian believing in the Old or New Testament. Or maybe they believe too much in it as the entire 90-minute film is basically about punishing the nun for her dirty thought, even if these were just a dream while all the males in here have dirty thought about her of course too, no matter if they are priests. I must say I am a bit shocked that there actually exists an own genre about nun exploitation films. My innocent mind had never thought of something like that before. The lead actress here is Susan Hemingway and it is her first performance. A couple others (also in Franco films) followed before she ended her acting career fairly quickly. Judging from what I saw here, this is perfectly fine. I can't really see a whole lot of talent that goes beyond her beautiful looks. This is not a failure, but not a good film either. I give it a thumbs-down.

I'm not overly familiar with Franco's work. I've only seen a couple of his movie. The story for this one is better than I expected with copious amounts of nudity and sex. I won't spoil everything, but this one takes the cake. I'm talking stuff like a cum-shot (Blink and you'll miss it) lesbianism, explicit crotch shots, hints of incest, grisly torture scenes, Satan worshiping in a church and lots more. Jess Franco is obviously trying very hard to be offensive and he managed to succeed with that a lot of the time as I couldn't believe my eyes at the dialog between one of the priests and a girl during this movie. I was also really impressed by how Franco managed to mirror the 1870's precisely. It was gorgeous to look at. My only true complaints about this movie are the crude dubbing and the talky pace at times. This movie is certainly the best Franco movie I've seen thus far. It's talky at times, but never truly boring. There is more than enough absurdity to keep you interested. 5.5/10

What led me to watch this film was the deceptive link it affects to have with the mysterious and hitherto debated origin of a series of letters written by a Portuguese nun from Beja in the Alentejo region, Mariana Acoforado, to her French lover Marquis De Chamilly. The original letters have been lost but they circulated in translations into several languages and were even published anonymously in Paris in 1669. Mariana's letters became synonymous with ardent love and passion, qualities attributed to Portuguese women for a certain time in those European countries where the letters were being read, with morbid curiosity no doubt. But the title is the only thing Jess Franco, the film's director, manages to salvage from what is otherwise a fascinating and mysterious relationship between a military man of aristocratic origins and the daughter of a well-to-do Portuguese gentleman who was placed in a convent at the early age of 11; her father's intentions were to assure her safety during the turbulent years of the Portuguese Restoration Wars (1663-68). This sad story of seduction and abandonment has its fruit in a literary genre of the letter. Franco's film could not possibly have strayed any further from the original tale of love gone wrong. Had the film industry existed during the time of the Reformation, the film would have been an excellent pamphlet of anti-Catholic propaganda. The film is a German production which somehow corroborates my suspicions that it could well be aimed at perpetuating a number of clichés concerning convents. We don't have secret tunnels connecting convents to the priest's residences; according to one of the clichés, skeletons of babies had due to illicit intercourse between priests and nuns littered these tunnels hidden from the eyes of the God-fearing populace. However, Franco's film presents us with an evil priest/confessor at a convent who obliges through lies to have a 15-year old girl, Maria Rosalea, put into the custody of nuns who turn out to be lesbian devil-worshipers whose plans for the little girl are mating her to the very devil himself during a nocturnal ceremony at which the rest of the community of nuns, dressed or rather undressed in cutaway habits receive the devil with frantic baring of their breasts while obscenely rubbing themselves with their wooden crucifixes and smacking their lips in sexual anticipation, avid to take the poor victim's place should Satan so require of them. As this does not happen they turn to one another for sexual solace. The priest had already been seen masturbating while listening to Mariana's confession. Later he forces her to give him head. He doesn't actually dare deflower her as her virginity is destined as an offering for the prince of darkness. Just in case anyone is wondering, the Inquisition makes its inevitable appearance in a confusion of events. While winding its ludicrous way towards the end the film suddenly changes genre. What seems destined to become a tragic ending with our innocent Mariana burnt at the stake, undergoes an unexpected turnabout and our heroine is saved by none other than the prince; a fit ending to a fairy tale. Had I not decided from the outset of the film that I would write a few lines for IMDb, I would not have been able to watch it till the end. If not the worst movie I've ever seen, it certainly occupies a very high place in the list.

I can't say that I'm a huge fan of the Jess Franco films that I've seen. I understand that some love him, some hate him - I've had a much more Luke-warm vibe from his films that I've seen, which haven't been many. But I will say that I found LOVE LETTERS FROM A PORTUGESE NUN to be one of the more "satisfying" Franco films, if still a bit "stale" and not nearly as glaringly "fun" and exploitative as other similar directors. A relatively common concept, but done with a bit of style and panache that Franco is (somewhat) known for...Maria is caught screwin' around with her boyfriend, and is quickly sent off to the local convent by her mother, who is convinced that her daughter is in league with the devil. Turns out - the convent is just itchin' for some fresh meat, and her daughter was really the least of her worries as they're a bunch of Satanists. We got child-molestin' priests (pre-dating the current headlines by almost thirty years) that are all in league with the devil. Damn I wish Christianity was really this much FUN!!! I can't say that LOVE LETTERS FROM A PORTUGESE NUN really brings much new to the table, but it was worth a view to my bourbon-riddled brain. A bit slow in parts, and it didn't contain any of the glorious hard-core scenes that other directors like Joe D'Amato pulled-off in some of his nunsploit films - but still worth a look to fans of the genre...7/10