Mother Joan of the Angels

A provincial convent in Poland in the seventeenth century. The nuns are said to be possessed. A priest sent earlier was burned, and now another arrives: Father Suryn is charged with entering the convent and saving the prioress, Mother Joan. He performs the rites, prays, talks. But the more he talks with her the more the matter changes; he begins to be unsure of his own faith and his own desire. Jerzy Kawalerowicz directs. Lucyna Winnicka plays Joan and Mieczysław Voit plays Suryn. The narrative rests on events in seventeenth century France; the case has been written about and filmed many times, and this version carries it to Poland. The image is black and white and the spaces are nearly empty; white walls, black habits and flat ground. Kawalerowicz strips everything away and leaves only figures. The subject is not the devil but suppression. The narrative does not argue whether the events are supernatural; it describes not what happened but what people did with it. It won the special jury prize at the Cannes film festival in 1961. It drew objections from church circles in Poland and became a matter of argument. Who it is for: viewers who follow Eastern European cinema and formally severe religious drama. Who it is not for: it is heavy, the pace is slow, and the narrative offers no explanation.