Anchoress (1993)

One of the worst movies I've ever seen

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

A while back, there was a glowing review about this movie, saying that the choice of a soundtrack was brilliant, and every time whoever wrote the review watched the movie, he, or she learned something new.Well, I'll admit that it does have a sort of addicting pull about it, but I haven't learned anything new really. Maybe I'm just stupid, but I think the real reason is that the movie is not as great as that particular post made it out to be.I like the film, but mainly, I like it for it's peculiar sexual themes. The acting is pretty good, but without much soundtrack, there's a lot of dead air where you expect something fantastically important to happen... Then the actors do something totally inexplicable, like move a bunch of rocks, or apples, or kiss a statue.All said, it looks more like a work in progress than a movie, but there's something about that unfinished quality that really catches my attention, and sucks me in, whether I like it or not.

Newby's film is based on the true story of Christine Carpenter, who in the 14th century was renounced as dead to the living world by the church, and enclosed as an anchoress for the rest of her life in the wall of a village church in Shere in Surray. The inspiration for the film, according to screenwriter Judith Stanely-Smith, was a letter concerning Christine written by the Bishop of Winchester in 1324.In the film Christine, a 14-year old illiterate peasant girl, finds herself drawn to a statue of the Virgin Mary. Meanwhile the village priest and "reeve" (Sheriff) are increasingly drawn to the beautiful Christine. The reeve proposed marriage to the girl, but Christine refuses the offer to the dismay of her mother, Pauline. Instead at the urging of a priest Christine becomes an anchoress so she can live next to the statue she so adores (and escape the possibility of marriage to the reeve). Her mother Pauline does not like her decision and plots against the priest. When Pauline, the village doctor and midwife, delivers the illegitimate stillborn child of the priests lover, the priest begins to plot against her. He accuses her of witchcraft and Pauline is killed by a mob. Meanwhile Christine has escaped from her cell through a tunnel and flees with her lover to Winchester to seek release from her vows from the Bishop there. The Bishop refuses and she "escapes" to run away with her love (although the ending scene is ambiguous if she really found freedom or a new kind of prison).Historically, the film is very accurate and instructive to understanding on an emotional and personal level the idea of Christian sexual renunciation and asceticism in the Middle Ages. The film also portrays well the interactions between secular and ecclesiastical powers over the lives of peasants. The reeves French-like accent is very accurate as a Norman lord (although the bald head is questionable). The Bishops Mediteranian accent and Latin language is also accurate. This film will appeal to anyone with an interest in the Middle Ages and history.

shot in B&W, but with a glaring brightness at times, "Anchoress" unravels a strange slice of life of a young woman who feels called to live in a cell of a church within sight of a statue of the Virgin. the Cult of Mary was strong in the medieval times (and i suppose it still continues today), and this and other bits of the medieval life bring some historical credibility to the screen.but far from being a sort of documentary, there are surreal and mystical elements too, which i think should serve to appeal to a modern audience. this film has what i would consider an art-house feel, but it also bears a purity to the viewer, of a simple age where belief meant everything and proof is almost heretical.whether a character has truly experienced a vision, or is a witch, or is holy,is never justly determined by the characters in their peasant lives, but is merely enforced by entrenched codes of social, religious, and other laws. to watch christine encounter each of these, to watch her life and her family be affected by the strangeness of the story and the rules of the age is captivating to behold.i found this film to be beautiful, bizarre, with a wonderful cast, as faithful as possible to the historically-known experiences of folk in European middle ages (well, aside from the imaginative bits), comical, tragic, but entirely fascinating.

Exquisitely spare cinematography and striking visuals which ape Andrei Tarkovsky's ANDREI RUBLEV cannot save this medieval tale from being a disappointment. English director Chris Newby's first feature is a dismally muddled array of images of life in a remote 14th-century village. Talented young thespian Natalie Morse (of Peter GreenawayÕs DROWNING BY NUMBERS) nevertheless succeeds in her tricky role as Christine Carpenter, a girl touched by transcendent grace, who succumbs to the misguided religious authority of the times and becomes an anchoress, a virgin who is walled up in a chamber in the church, to serve as a moral beacon for the villagers.This makes the snickering local priest (Christopher Eccleston) overjoyed, as he takes her away from the Reeve (Eugene Bervoets, of the original French-Dutch production of THE VANISHING), the local military power monger. She is periodically visited by her surly pagan mother (English new-wave personality Toyah Wilcox) and pretty much ignored by her father, who is played by Pete Postlethwaite.The only real power in the film is in the scenes with Christine alone, discovering her sensuality. The rest of the film is a mess, partly due to the confusing, overly obscure script, which hardly lets the audience know what's going on without benefit of reading a plot synopsis beforehand. It purports to observe the female condition through the ages, but ends up being mostly uninsightful and boring.