Behind Convent Walls

[Finch]

Arrow UK store

A lushly filmed exploration of the relationship between flesh and spirit from Polish provocateur Walerian Borowczyk, director of Blanche, The Beast, and Immoral Tales.

Behind the walls of an apparently serene convent, a zealous abbess tries in vain to keep order and prevent her sexually repressed charges from experiencing the sins of the flesh. When the unfortunate young nuns get out of control, the church inflicts cruel punishment for their carnal crimes.

Erotic, colourful and highly charged, Behind Convent Walls features striking handheld cinematography by Luciano Tovoli (Suspiria) and the final performance of Borowczyk's wife, Ligia Branice.

LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS
New 2K restoration by Arrow Films from the original 35mm camera negatives
High Definition (1080p) Blu-ray presentation
Original lossless English and Italian mono audio options
Optional English subtitles for the Italian soundtrack
Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing for the English soundtrack
Brand new audio commentary by film critic Justine Smith
Anarchic Nuns and the Artistry of Desire, a new appreciation by film scholar Virginie Sélavy
Brief Von Paris (1975), a short film by Walerian Borowczyk
Theatrical trailer
Reversible sleeve featuring two artwork options
Illustrated collector's booklet featuring new writing by film scholar Kat Ellinger and original press notes

[furbicide]

This is a pleasant surprise! Always exciting to have a new Borowczyk film out on Blu-ray. I can't say I liked Behind Convent Walls all that much the first time I saw it (on the old Cult Epics DVD), but will definitely be buying this and revisiting.

[colinr0380]

Great news! I have not upgraded from the late 90s Redemption VHS before now but am looking forward to revisiting it. Amusingly the film, for all of its naughty nuns straining at the boundaries of sublimated sexuality, is a lot about objectifying the idea of men and their bodies too, moving from the metaphorical, through the substitute, to the literal as things go from the rather naughty image of Christ drawn on the base of a crudely whittled dildo, to the swarthy butcher lugging his giant hunk of meat around before proudly slapping it down onto the kitchen table for all the nuns to appreciatively set their hungry eyes upon, to of course the final (and potentially most blasphemous of all!) literally climactic scene of nighttime illicit coupling between Nun and Priest! Which I seem to recall (though I may be wrong after all this time) takes place on top of a tombstone/altar! (Which reminds me that I saw the film only about a year after seeing Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula for the first time, which featured some quite thematically similar imagery to that final scene)

[Peacock]

My first - and thus far only - interaction with this Boro came from reading about it as a teen in Vogel’s Film as a Subversive Art… or was it actually in Taschen’s Erotic Cinema.. I seem to recall a full page colour image of a nun peeking out of an window. Either way I’ve been wanting to see this in a decent edition for all too long!

Mr Flowers/Mr Brooke or anyone reading this; I assume this edition will be uncut?

[JamesF]

It is indeed uncut, as was the Nouveaux DVD from over a decade ago.

[Peacock]

Thank you James, good to know!

[MichaelB]

Although I co-produced Arrow's original Borowczyk discs back in 2014-15, I had nothing whatever to do with this release - I didn't even know it was coming out until yesterday's announcement.

(I'm sure they've done a superb job - this is merely to forestall people asking me direct questions that I'm not in a position to answer.)