4. Behind Convent Walls (1978)
The plot is silly nonsense but Walerian Borowzcyk's Behind Convent Walls is a very beautifully filmed and realised piece of erotica. Greatly praised as an arthouse director in his younger days, by the time Behind Convent Walls came along in the late 1970s, Borowzcyk's reputation had fallen to 'gutter smut peddler'. It was very sad to see the great man directing Emmanuelle 5 in the 1980s. Behind Convent Walls follows the attempts of the convent superiors to stamp out sleaze and degeneracy among the nuns. The nuns are all uniformly good looking and parade around either in their underwear or totally naked which makes for mild thrills. One nun is so in love with Jesus - carnally in love with him - that she masturbates with a dildo with his likeness carved onto it. Another nun frolics with the hired hand outside crying out religious epithets in ecstasy. There is also a pregnant nun and scenes of rampant lesbianism. This is all good old nunsploitation fare which is delivered with panache by Borowcyk. The acting is weak and it is basically an excuse to deliver up debauchery in a sensationalist setting, but you have to admire the sheer artiness of Borowzcyk's direction and the classiness of the production compared to its nunsploitation brethren. At least you can pretend you are watching something semi-respectable.