Flavia the Heretic

 

Flavia the Heretic (aka Flavia the Muslim Nun)

1974

Director- Gianfranco Mingozzi

Cast-  Florinda Bolkan, María Casares, Claudio Cassinelli, Anthony Higgins, Spiros Focás, Laura De Marchi

From Italy

            Set in the Middle Ages, Flavia is the daughter of a feudal warlord. As a child she witnesses her father murder a Muslim soldier that she had just met. Later, probably due to her willful nature, her father sends her to a convent, where she grows up.

            Flavia is surrounded by cruelty and inequality and is reminded often of the very low status of women; she witnesses a fellow nun being tortured to death after losing her mind, she sees a nobleman rape a girl in a pigpen and get away with it, and the church and scriptures remind her that she is lower than a man.

            She tries to escape the nunnery with the help of a Jew she is friends with (he himself a victim of a similar kind of oppression). Her father has her captured, beaten, put back into the convent, and imprisons the man who helped her.

    

        She sees her chance for liberation- and revenge- when a Muslim war party raids the town. She joins forces, and falls in love, with the young Muslim captain leading the group (played by Hammer star Anthony Higgins from Taste the Blood of Dracula and Vampire Circus, who looks almost unrecognizable with a military crew cut and goatee).

            With the Muslim soldiers to aid her, Flavia sets out on a quest for revenge against her oppressors and she gets pretty bloody, torturing and executing all that have wronged her.

            In the end, her victory turns to ashes in her mouth as she discovers that ultimately, a woman’s plight is no better with the Muslims than the Christians. She rebels again only to find herself friendless when the consequences of her actions come due.

         Nunsploitation had its peak in the 1970s. Most of the best known films of the genre came out in that decade. Ken Russell’s The Devils, Jess Franco’s The Demons, Story of a Cloistered Nun, The Nun and the Devil, School of the Holy Beast, Satanico Pandemonium, Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun, Alucarda, Killer Nun and Malabimba all came out between 1971-1979.

            So why was the decade so prolific? Part of it is that the 70s was a boundary pushing decade for pop culture in general but movies specifically. A good example is Hammer Horror that was still making PG films in 1969 and then made Vampire Lovers in 1970. Another reason is the social memory and reaction to fascism. Its no coincidence that most of the above listed movies were made in Europe and Japan, which had endured fascist rulers through the end of WW2. Portugal and Spain were still fascist through the mid 70s.

            Nunsploitation as a genre questions authority and highlights the abuse of power. Flavia the Heretic spends a lot of time doing both. Flavia’s bloody revenge, though maybe justified, is a reminder that the abuse of power is almost inevitable, even by the well-meaning.

            Florinda Bolkon tended to play less glamorous roles than her contemporaries like Edwige Fenech and Barbara Bouchet, and Flavia is definitely not a sexy role, or a sexy movie, despite being nunsploitation. There is a fair amount of nudity, but it’s presented in an often disturbing way.

            It’s a good looking film, with a lot of effort placed on costumes and filming done in and around preserved medieval structures. It also has a nice score by Oscar winner Nicola Piovani. A combination historical drama /exploitation film, check out Flavia the Heretic if you’re a fan of the nunsploitation genre or a fan of Florinda Bolkon.