The Convent (1995)

A Brilliant Conflict

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

This film sounded interesting but turned out to be a pretentious flop. The only good thing about it was the Portuguese scenery. It inspired a desire to visit that country. But the film itself was terrible. I usually like philosophical foreign films, but this one just seemed to be all style and no substance. Catherine Deneuve portrays her usual self: the intriguing ethereal beauty and Malkovich portrayed a low-key form of his usual self: quirky intellectual. But the plot just seemed pointless. The Professor did not seem to show any real interest in his alleged research. It did not seem clear why he came to this particular place to do the research. His wife did not seem interested in their relationship until she felt jealous. The mystery of the people living at the monastery was never explained. The music was disturbingly intrusive. The Faust story did not seem particularly relevant... I could go on and on about all the dissatisfying elements of this film. It was like a bad David Lynch movie...

Two stars for fairly competent cinematography. Good composition and good camera movement without glitzy focus-racking thru the forest.Malkovich and Deneuve are there only for their names. The real acting takes place with the Porteguese? actors. And they struggle with the pretentious dialog.The two worst offenses are committed by the director who explains the characters and their actions thru narration ( or awkward scenes with minor actors describing the main characters by using some vaguely occult terminology) rather than showing their characters and motivations thru their actions and their own dialog. It is a movie, after all, not an essay. Second offense is the music, which is overwhelming at times. Using Stravinsky with violent string passages to imply evil, danger, foreboding etc could work, but it didn't for this production. Just loud and annoying without any real matching action.It reminded me greatly of a university master's thesis film I worked on 37 years ago--(fortunately not mine). Lots of fantasy, lots of literary allusions, lots of mood, pointless scenery long shots, more than a few long takes that the director fell in love with and the editor was not inclined (or allowed) to abbreviate, and some really over-the-top acting moments (as when Baltar meets the prof's wife for the first time). Down, boy, down! I rented it because I am trying to catch up on some Deneuve films that I missed over the years, but I'm sorry I did. She must have really needed some money to have done this one.

A seventeen year old could do this at home. Here's how:Take the most low-rent, brain-dead Hollywood teenage Satan-worshipper slasher flick you can imagine. Now: edit out the teenagers, edit out the violence, edit out the gore, edit out anything remotely suspenseful or titillating, and replace it all with quotes from Goethe and Nietzsche. Now,take it all very seriously and say you have an art film.I guess if you are eighty-five instead of seventeen, someone in Europe will give you a prize. Sort of a sympathy award for a crazy old uncle.Everything about this movie except for a few shots of the Iberian countryside is appallingly bad. The script has to be the laziest and most inept I have ever encountered outside of a community college classroom. Who knows what Malkovich and Deneuve were thinking if they actually read it before agreeing to make this film (assuming there ever was actually a script that could be read). Who knows what they thought when they saw the rushes. In fact, my theory about the ending is that all the actors (except the fisherman, I guess) simply abandoned the project in exasperation, walked off the set, and never came back. It's that ludicrous and incoherent.And the Shakespeare theory that is supposedly the inspiration and impetus behind this entire trainwreck...to call it lazy, sophomoric, and stupid is to give it more substance and development than the movie ever bothered to.Funniest, most unintentionally hilarious moment? When Deneuve tells "Baltar" (I'm not making that name up) how magnetic and irresistible he is. Only a great actress could have done that without needing oxygen almost immediately.

This film was just too mysterious at times and, even though I found it super provocative and ultimately, worthwhile: the end had me laughing out loud -- and I'm sure that wasn't the intended effect. I'm curious to know what others think:Does the professor actually make a visit to Piedad's room? Or is it a dream, as she describes? How do you read the professor's reaction when she describes her vision? "I should stay far away from this lunatic." or "She and her delusions are sooo hot." -- are a couple of options.How to interpret Piedad's flight into the forest -- is she doomed to fall prey to desire, does this demonstrate the flaw in "goodness"?What other movies by this director would you recommend? Are there similarities among them?