It's been thirty-three years since the release of Ken Russell's film and twenty years since I first saw it. It is a wildly chaotic film partly because it was spawned at the end of the sixties and partly because Russell's films are often a bit over the top. Originally it had an X rating and probably could not be produced today.
The film is based on an historical incident. In the 1630's, there was an episode of mass hysteria in Loudun centering around Ursuline nuns as the film describes.
The visual image I had retained of the film was of a row of corpses on wagon wheels perched atop poles lining the road. Actually the opening scene in the film is of King Louis XIII playing Aphrodite and dressing as the Sun King, amusing himself and his decadent court. Later Louis is seen shooting Protestants dressed as giant birds. Cardinal Richelieu watching has no quarrel with Louis' lifestyle and is only intent on urging the King to nationalize France.
Baron De Laubardemont arrives in Loudun, an emissary of Richelieu, to tear down the city's fortifications and destroy its means of insisting on self-government. Father Grandier thwarts him and makes him an enemy. Now De Laubardemont is looking for a way to destroy the priest. He happens upon one: Sister Jeanne (Vanessa Redgrave).
Father Grandier (Oliver Reed) has never noticed Sister Jeanne but she has watched him pass imprisoned as she is inside the confines of the nunnery. She has elaborate fantasies about him. In one of these she is drying his feet with her hair and in another, he is a bloodied Christ and she is kissing him. When she learns of his secret marriage she blurts out to Father Mignon, "he speaks to me of love . . . he enters my bed at night." Father Mignon suggests it is an incubus. She replies that it is Father Grandier. Thereafter, Mignon and De Laubardemont enlist a professional witch hunter, Father Barre, to get evidence of demonic possession. Sister Jeanne is trapped. She tries to be vague but is tortured and must continue to produce more lurid details to satisfy Barre. She has trapped all the nuns in her order with her and they too must confess to avoid torture. All the while the townspeople are allowed to view the proceedings. It has become pandemonium rather literally. Nuns run naked, growl, drool, dance, and tear hair. They are offered what they are told is a holy relic and immediately become pious and docile as do the unruly townspeople watching. When it is revealed the relic is only a snuffbox, they resume their interrupted madness.
