(aka "Mother Joan Of the Angels" or "Joan of the Angels" or "The Devil and the Nun")
directed
by Jerzy Kawalerowicz
Poland 1961
"Mother Joan of the Angels" is based on the infamous historical
episode known as the Possession of Loudon. In the early 17th century in
the French town of Loudon a number of nuns from a Ursuline convent were said
to be possessed by demons and evil spirits. An investigation by the Church led
to a local libertine Father Urbain Grandier being tortured and burnt at the
stake. It was alleged that he had regularly been seen seducing and fornicating
with the nuns. He was also accused of witchcraft by a demon who spoke through
Mother Joan, the head of the convent. The ‘Possession of Loudon’ has inspired
artists, writers and filmmakers over the last 100 years and a wide and varied
body of work has built up around the episode, including Aldous Huxley’s "The
Devils Of Loudon"(1952), John R. Whitting’s "The Devils"(1962),
Penderecki’s "The Devils Of Loudon"(1969) and Ken Russell’s "The
Devils" (1971). Jerzy Kawalerowicz’s "Mother Joan of the Angels" is
not as well-known as a number of these works but fully deserves to stand
alongside them.
At the time of filming, Jerzy Kawalerowicz was an experienced director with a
body of work that stretched back for a decade and included films such as
"Shadow" (1956) and "Night Train" (1959). In 1955 he had been appointed
as artistic director at the 'Kadr', the production unit of the Polish Film
School. Following the death of Stalin there had been an opportunity for
directors to move away from the confines of the Kadr's social realism and to
explore new perspectives. Making films alongside Kawalerowicz at this time
were directors such as Andrzej Munk and Andrezj Wadja. This period is
generally regarded as a Golden Age for post-war Polish cinema.
In the most celebrated analysis of the episode on which the film is based (The
Possession at Loudon by Michel Certau)* the author describes how these
events revealed the deepest fears of a society in flux and accelerated its
transformation. He talks of a people torn between the decline of a centralized
religious authority and the rise of science and reason, wracked by violent
anxiety over what or whom to believe. Europe was drawing nearer and nearer to
the Enlightenment, traditional and modern beliefs and science and religion
were jockeying for position, clashing in a rapidly changing society. In what
maybe a reference to the mirroring in the film, some contemporary commentators
have remarked on how Mother Joan could be read as portraying the struggle of
the Polish people being stuck between the rationalism of the communist state
and the faith of the Church. There is also a school of thought that says that
the film could be read today as an allegory for a Polish society that is still
coming to terms with the anxieties and traumas of its transfer from communist
state to a free-market capitalist system.
However the most telling commentary on the film is Jerzy Kawalerowicz’s own.
For him it has a more intimate, universal meaning. He told Ray Privett of
Kinoeye: "Matka Joanna od aniolów is a film against dogma. That is the
universal message of the film. It is a love story about a man and a woman who
wear church clothes, and whose religion does not allow them to love each
other. They often talk about and teach about love – how to love God, how to
love each other – and yet they cannot have the love of a man and a woman
because of their religion. This dogma is itself inhuman. The devils that
possess these characters are the external manifestations of their repressed
love. The devils are like sins, opposite to their human nature. It is like the
devils give the man and woman an excuse for their human love. Because of that
excuse, they are able to love.” Allegory, metaphors and such like aside, the
one thing that has not been remarked on in the little that has been written
about this wonderful film is just how beautifully strange it is.
Poster
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Theatrical Release: Finland 23 February 1962, USA 7 May 1962
Reviews More Reviews DVD Reviews
DVD Review: Second Run DVD - Region 2,4 - PAL
Big thanks to Per-Olof Strandberg for the Review!
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| Distribution |
Second Run DVD Region 2,4 - PAL |
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| Runtime | 104:58 (4% PAL speedup) | |
| Video |
1:1.33
Original Aspect Ratio |
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| Audio | Polish (Dolby Digital 2.0) | |
| Subtitles | English and None | |
| Features |
Release Information: Studio: Second Run DVD Aspect Ratio:
Edition Details: Chapters 15 |
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| Comments | On the DVD
package: "Mother Joan of the Angels has been digitally re-mastered and newly subtitled from the best existing source available to us. But, due to the age and condition of the source master, there remains a steady amount of visual noise that could not be removed without compromising the integrity of the whole film." The best source, unfortunately (the 35 mm negative remains untouched in the cellars of some Polish archive), is from an existing tape, so there are deficiencies due to the limitations of the analog source. The DVD is mastered from a, probably almost 30 year old, tape and since then, the equipment to transfer films to tape source has improved a lot. You can't improve the picture on a bad quality tape master, even though you have the best digital restoring program. What is an old and relatively weak transfer, remains so. Only if you create a new tape from the original film elements you can improve it. It is unfortunate that this appeared on DVD in this condition. Though, it actually looks a little bit better in movement, than on the screen caps. If you do have it on VHS, it's probably the same source material used. We do thank Second Run for making this available in the digital format and the film is highly recommended! - Per-Olaf Strandberg |
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