Flavia the Heretic (La Flavia, la monaca musulmana) (1974)

One of the benefits to following b-movies and cult films is that they offer a healthy environment filled with exotic species of sub-genre you would never see thriving in Hollywood. Nunsploitation films are one particularly hard to defend sample, a type of film guaranteed to tweak conservative Catholics as well as feminists who aren't inclined to see any positive appeal in lesbian S&M scenes (“Such scenes are problematic”, as they say in my humorless academic circles). As someone who is familiar with such nunsploitation “classics” as The Sinful Nuns of St. Valentine and Killer Nun, I can say with some authority that the films, or at least the ones that have come out of Europe, are, like their cultural ancestors the anticlerical Gothic novels of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a brew of spicy sensationalism with a taste of anti-Catholicism.

Flavia the Heretic is an interesting case: nunsploitation as a tale of female empowerment (well, an empowerment that stretches beyond nuns whipping and tying each other up, anyway). The daughter of an Italian nobleman, Flavia has been shut away in a convent since adolescence. Even with the perks of living in a convent endowed with her father's money, the adult Flavia is unhappy, haunted by her romantic memories of a handsome Muslim soldier she had seen her father kill and by her attraction to the convent's Jewish servant, Abraham. Her discontent escalates into anger when she sees one of her brethren disfigured as punishment for heresy, under the supervision of her father no less, while a nobleman who rapes a peasant woman with the knowledge and terrified consent of her family goes unpunished. Flavia tries to escape with Abraham, only to be captured and tortured as Abraham is imprisoned. Unrepentant, Flavia comes under the tutelage of an older nun who preaches that men are secretly terrified of women and their untapped power. And when Muslim raiders appear in the vicinity, Flavia, hoping to find salvation with men from another civilization, joins them and is drawn to their commander, who declares that he will support her mission of revenge. Unfortunately, Flavia's rage blinds her to the cruelty of her Islamic champion as well as her own ripe potential for inhumanity.

Boiled down to the basics, Flavia the Heretic is another voyage in “Euroshock.” Of course, most of the film's moments in lurid sadism are coupled with, presumably as an unpleasant reflection of the audience, shots of men watching in morbid anticipation. There's none of the ironic, campy distance provided by, say, a Ilsa: She-Wolf of the SS; instead the violence is presented in a somber, almost documentary-esque way that's strong enough to challenge the perceptions of viewers who expect from the context an “unserious” exploitation flick. The film's presentation of historical injustice and the fate of the disenfranchised under a savage society is not just an excuse to try to shock viewers.

Neither is the film's feminist message just dressing. If anything, the film can be accused of being a tad too sincere. Phallic weapons and other objects abound; even Sister Agatha casually waves around a shapely club while on her anti-male tirades. The dialogue, while generally well-crafted, occasionally hammers the point in a bit too vigorously. An exchange between Flavia and Abraham, where Abraham talks about the rabbinic story of Lilith the rebellious first woman, sounds like the filmmakers telling viewers, “We just want to make sure you're getting it!” Elsewhere the filmmakers more than compensate by creating several intriguing, nuanced characters and presenting actors who are up to the task. Sister Agatha is in danger of becoming a caricature but manages to show symptoms of a complex, painful history. Abraham's motives in following Flavia, and his exact feelings for her, are mostly up to the viewer's speculation. Most of all, there's Flavia, whose viewpoint drives the entire movie (how rare is it today, by the way, to have a genre movie – or, really, any movie – that's so centered around a female character?). A character who truly changes under traumatic circumstances, Flavia's shift from oppressed to oppressor is truly heartbreaking, both as the corruption of a powerful, appealing character and as a cynical message on human nature.

Hopefully people can look past the trappings of 1970s European “shock cinema” and find a compelling movie that's well-acted and well-written with intelligent commentary that manages to apply to both history and modern lives. There is no denying that Flavia is a ugly, bleak film, which will in all likelihood make its audience uncomfortable, and that alone might make it an accurate reconstruction of what it was like to be powerless in medieval Europe.