Story of a Cloistered Nun (1973) User Reviews

A surprisingly non-exploitative nunsploitation film

[Leofwine_draca · 6/10 · 1 January 2017]

Here's an Italian-Spanish-West German nunsploitation film based on the supposedly true story of Sister Agnes Carmela which follows her trials and tribulations after becoming a nun and the vice-ridden convent at which she stays. Truth be told, I'm not a big fan of the nunsploitation genre but STORY OF A CLOISTERED NUN is never boring as some of the films can be. Carmela certainly has an eventful stay at the nunnery, and her many obstacles and pains include being locked away in solitary confinement for thirty days; being whipped after leaving her room at night; unwanted advances from a lesbian sister; the murder of her lover; and her final pregnancy which leads to the convent being closed down and a new, unexpected life for the sister.

While the usual genre trappings of sex and nudity are present, the film goes beyond that to offer a truly beautiful experience. The crisp photography is highly artistic and rewarding, the period music evocative and classy. The actresses are all selected for their good looks as well as their acting abilities. All of these factors make STORY OF A CLOISTERED NUN a film which is very easy on the eye. Eleonora Giorgi plays Carmela, the beautiful yet fragile woman who acts as the film's eyes and ears - after all, this is her story. Giallo veteran Suzy Kendall takes the role of the mother superior to make it memorably her own, while the film also carefully fleshes out the characters of the other nuns in the convent - the misguided lesbian friend, the spy, the "mad" nun who ends up killing herself, the childish newcomers. The themes in the story are adult and widely cover life, death, religious values, love, sex, and the human character to make for a rich experience. STORY OF A CLOISTERED NUN is a film which transcends genre boundaries to make for a watchable - and interesting - tale.

More a romantic story than nunsploitation

[lastliberal · 6/10 · 7 September 2008]

This film did not have the typical features of a usual nunsploitation film. Sure, it had nudity and a whipping, but the sex was all off camera.

Eleonora Giorgi played Carmela, who was promised as an infant to unite two families. She fell in love with another and her father locked her away in a convent. Giorgi was really good in the role and made the film worth watching.

Sister Elisabetta (Catherine Spaak) assisted her in meeting her lover while in the convent. Spaak was also very good. Unfortunataly, Sister's motives were not just to befriend Carmela; she was actually in love with her. Spurned, she took revenge.

Also good was Suzy Kendall who played Mother Superior. She was also in love with Carmel, but never really expressed it.

Just watching this film as a romance is worthwhile. You'll have to look elsewhere for real nunsploitation.

All nuns are gay, it says here

[Bezenby · 6/10 · 24 March 2018]

Honest love - my finger slipped when I was trying to click on the film 'violent bloodbath'. I didn't mean to click on Domenico Paolella's other 1973 nun film (which confusingly features stills from The Nun and The Devil in the opening credits).

Carmella is from a noble family and has forgotten that she was promised to marry a guy from another noble family when she cops off with a local soldier. Family enraged, the only thing they can do is throw her in a convent, where we can all rest easy knowing that she will be kept pure and sheltered from the outside world.

That's if she can avoid the advances of cruel mother superior Suzy Kendall (lesbian), Sister Elizabeth (lesbian), who appears nice at first and is also knocking boots with soldier Umberto Orisini, who gets his kicks hearing about all the lesbian (lesbian) activity at the convent, or the other two novices (lesbians).

Carmella has a hard time adjusting to convent life, and no wonder - it looks awful! When not grassing each other in for everything, the nuns make passes at each other, have affairs with the outside, and Carmella has Suzy Kendall crawling into her room every night while Sister Elizabeth takes her OUT of the room every night. Sounds like a bean-fest, right?

Wrong! Just like The Nun and The Devil, this isn't a sex filled exploitation film, rather than a serious commentary on the suppression of female sexuality in a brutal male society, and just like the previous film, this one looks gorgeous. It's also rather touching in a way, especially the last ten minutes of the film, where those expecting nuns in high heels actually end up with actual acting. Suzy Kendall, who usually just screams her way through a film (not her fault - they are usually gialli) do good here as the internally torn Mother Superior, who shows herself to be someone with hidden depths.

Not the brutal sex-fest you associate 'nunsploitation' with!

[The_Void · 7/10 · 2 April 2007]

Nunsploitation has to be just about the most bizarre of all the exploitation variants, and usually these films are good fun to watch. Most of the nunsploitation that I've seen has been rather nasty, featuring brutal rapes as well as the token nudity. This one, however, bucks that trend; as while Domenico Paolella's Story of a Cloistered Nun features a good deal of nudity, lesbianism and general blaspheming; it certainly doesn't have the nasty edge of films such as Images in a Convent and The Killer Nun, and that's actually not a bad thing! The plot is "based on a true story", but that doesn't mean it isn't your usual nunsploitation fare. The story concerns a young girl who was supposed to marry a man from another family due to an 'arranged at birth' marriage, but she falls in love with another man. Naturally, her parents are none too pleased; and the girl is swiftly sent off to a convent where she is degraded and humiliated, and then becomes the object of a sexually repressed lesbian nun's desires.

Considering that this is an obscure movie, made in Italy in 1973; the cinematography and production values are surprisingly good, and Story of a Cloistered Nun is actually not really a trash film at all. This is likely to annoy some viewers; and indeed, I do watch this sort of stuff mainly to see sex and violence, but I can't be too hard on the film as the director manages to keep things interesting throughout, and it's obvious that a lot of work went into it. The acting is largely good, with Suzy Kendall providing the highlight role as 'Mother Superior'. The fact that the film isn't very nasty certainly helps it when it comes to the lesbian plot as the fact that it isn't brutal or forced actually means that the film is more erotic than it otherwise might have been (NO disrespect to Images in a Convent, though). I wouldn't say that this film should be at the top of every nunsploitation fan's wishlist, but it provides something a little different from the norm and it definitely is a film worth seeing.

Kind of tame, but worthwhile "nunsploitation" film

[lazarillo · 14 March 2007]

This is one of the earlier Italian "nunsploitation" films and as such may disappoint those expecting a Joe D'Amato style sex romp like "Images in a Convent" or the bloody satanic pandemonium of the later Jess Franco/Hispanic variety. It is also not nearly as gruelingly realistic and incendiary as "Flavia, the Heretic", probably the best of these films. It most resembles the two films before it--"The Nuns of St. Archangel" and "The Sinful Nuns of St. Valentines". These films don't quite make up a trilogy since they are all more or less the same. A young woman is confined to a convent after she refuses a marriage arranged by her strict father. There she finds herself caught between the kindly but strict Mother Superior and a libertine bisexual nun from an influential family who is able to obtain favors like drunken, naked parties and rendezvous with men on the outside. After the young nun becomes pregnant by her boyfriend a scandal erupts and all the nuns have to unite against a common enemy--the corrupt and brutal patriarchal authority.

Although the story is pretty mind-numbing, this movie really works because of the acting. Suzie Kendall really manages to flesh out what is usually a pretty two dimensional Mother Superior role. Catherine Spaak is equally good as the wicked, libertine nun. Eleanora Giorgi plays the young novice, the role occupied by Ornella Muti and Jenny Tamburi in earlier movies, and she is more than adequate. And if you don't blink you might also see an early unclothed appearance by Paola Senatore who was later in "Images in a Convent" (and apparently hardcore Italian porn). There is some nudity, mostly by the beautiful Giorgi and the extras (Kendall, characteristically, and Spaak, quite uncharacteristically, both keep their habits on), but there is a general lack of the depravity fans have come to expect from this genre. There is one scene where Giorgi (half-naked, of course) is tied up and whipped, and a scene where Spaak is made to crawl across the floor licking it with her tongue--a striking if perhaps not really very erotic image.

This is kind of tame but definitely worth watching, especially for nunsploitation fans and other demented perverts.

STORY OF A CLOISTERED NUN (Domenico Paolella, 1973) ***

[Bunuel1976 · 7/10 · 21 March 2009]

Possibly the best of the Italian "Nunsploitationers" – even if, apart from ample nudity (the violence here is quite mild), the film's character-driven nature is liable to disappoint hardened genre fans…not to mention a denouement which could be deemed anti-climactic! It was made by the same people behind THE NUN AND THE DEVIL (1973; see above) yet, being inspired by real events and therefore more 'serious' in tone than its predecessor, director Paolella was not afraid to attach his name to it. While the plot per se is rather thin and offers no real surprises (especially after having watched 9 of these in a brief span of time!), the end result is immeasurably elevated by spot-on central casting: Catherine Spaak (as a rebellious bisexual nun), Suzy Kendall (as the quietly perturbed Mother Superior) and Eleonora Giorgi (arguably the loveliest actress to feature in this type of film and whom the makers miss no opportunity to parade sans clothing); by the way, Martine Brochard from the previous film returns in the role of a crazy nun. The males figure less prominently this time around – even Umberto Orsini is no more than a narcissist relishing his prohibited liaison with a cloistered nun (Spaak). Following on from THE NUN AND THE DEVIL, Piero Piccioni contributes another lush yet moody score to complement the film's striking visuals (courtesy of cinematographer Armando Nannuzzi, a Pasolini regular, and the stark production design). Interestingly, the credits are accompanied by stills depicting vintage artwork but also scenes from the previous film itself!; a small gripe I have with this particular presentation of STORY OF A CLOISTERED NUN is that the admittedly tiny English subtitles are non-removable (which, being fluent in Italian, I did not require).

A good movie. Honestly!

[IndustriousAngel · 7/10 · 6 February 2016]

Well, most reviewers seem to class this as "nunsploitation" but this production is, simply, much too good to be classified as anything sleazy, in fact I felt reminded more of "The Nun's Story" than anything else. Sure, there's some nudity, but never gratuitous - even the "sisterly love" and corporal punishment scenes were handled with taste and respect. And there's real acting here, some very intense and touching scenes. The costumes and sets are simple but top-notch, the music is good, camera and light are not outstanding but serviceable, and the story progresses at a slow (fitting the theme) but relentless pace - never during the 90min runtime did I feel the need to fast-forward.

The story itself is simple enough, with the young heroine banned to a convent against her will - from there it progresses along predictable ways as she slowly gets to know the ways of the convent, a community balanced on a precarious equilibrium of powers, centered around the mother superior on the one hand and sister Elisabeth on the other (a simple nun but with family connections up to the archbishop). The mistrust between everyone is palpable, every small gesture, condescending look and so on carries meaning. Despite the slow pace the tension is high all the way through. It's no surprise that the balanced powers come crashing down in the last act, still I was a bit shocked about how cruel the resolution was. The post-credits claim that this is based on true events; I don't want to dig deeper but the bleak ending does indeed have a most realistic appeal.

ravishingly beautiful film

[christopher-underwood · 9/10 · 10 June 2010]

Quite a surprise, this one, not at all your usual, sex and violence, nunsploitation but a much more measured and ravishingly beautiful film. Much effort has been made to give this a most believable slant and indeed claims to have been based on true accounts. It certainly has the feel of something much more than mere exploitation and it has to be said that whilst the usual ingredients make appearances they are more realistic than is usual and in some ways the more erotic for that. I see from my records that I did see this film years ago on video and was not very impressed, so whether I was disappointed, at the time, by the lack of usual goings on or unable to fully appreciate the movie without the crisp and colourful image now presented, I know not. In any event a most impressive outing.

Truly a Nun

[Imdad_Palijo · 7/10 · 12 July 2022]

I have watched different movies on the sub-genre Nunsploitation, this is one of the quite suitable and fitting movies on the subject. The theme is analogous to various movies on the subject; it has been handled skillfully with a balanced approach. I am of the opinion that this movie has been slightly underrated.

The movie, claimed at the ending to be a true account, pertains to the life of Carmela Simoni (Eleonora Giorgi) who is forcefully sent to be cloistered at the convent so as to restrain her from marrying at her won will. Set in the 17th century Italy, the movie depicts the tough life at nunnery including flaws, intrigues, and sufferings of the nuns.

soft and sweet nunsploitation film

[U.D.O · 4 April 1999]

A beautiful nunsploitation epic,sweet and tender where the lovely Eleonora Giorgi plays a blond virgin forced to live behind convent walls. Catherine Spaak is excellent and even more sexy than she was in her early giallos. Suzy Kendall is beautifull in the role of the mother superior who want to be a new mother for her "sister" Carmella She's more sensitive and sad than ever. I prefer this one as THE NUNS OF ST ARCHANGELLO also from Domenico Paolela. beautifull photography, beautifull music, beautifull nuns...