Film
What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases
Bookmark this pageThe Tempter (1973)
Director: Damiano Damiani
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
A diabolical piece of work which pointlessly indulges the Italian obsession with convents, nuns, and - ever so discreetly - mortification of the flesh. Just who tempts whom and why remains a mystery: possibly the clues were lost in translation. It is never really sorted out why the film's medley of tormented characters - an incestuously-inclined minor prince; a woman remorseful after betraying her secret police torturer husband to her revolutionary lover; a worker priest who has been provoking strikes; a radical Bishop - remain within the decidedly photogenic but otherwise uninteresting confines of this particular convent hostelry. Nor is it at all obvious who the devil in the woodpile is - Glenda Jackson's Mother Superior or Claudio Casinelli's intruder. As Damiani protractedly works and reworks his material, the whole thing - especially with our heroine offering herself to the most ghoulish TV repairman ever to have graced the screen - looks more and more like a reworking of Theorem on a more pedestrian level.Author: VG
Cast & crew
Director: Damiano Damiani
Producer: Anis Nohra, Martin C Chute
Cast: Glenda Jackson, Claudio Casinelli, Lisa Harrow, Adolfo Celi, Arnoldo Foà, Francisco Rabal full cast
Duration: 106 mins
Most popular on this site
Top Stories
Review: Penélope Cruz more raunchy than ever in 'Nine'
Dave Calhoun reports on Rob Marshall's Oscar-touted musical with Daniel Day-Lewis playing a troubled director
Time Out's 101 Films of the Decade
Ten years, thousands of movies and millions of dollars in international box office, and it all boils down to this
Jim Jarmusch on 'The Limits of Control'
Jim Jarmusch has followed ‘Broken Flowers’ with an esoteric crime mystery. Dave Calhoun speaks to him from his New York office
Richard Linklater on 'Me and Orson Welles'
Dave Calhoun meets the 49-year-old, Houston-born filmmaker Richard Linklater to discuss his new comedy
Our verdict on Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones
Peter Jackson ends a triumphant decade with a sentimental misfire with this lush Alice Sebold adaptation
On the set of Ken Loach's 'Route Irish'
Dave Calhoun meets Ken Loach on the set of his forthcoming Iraq war movie
Is 'Paranormal Activity' the new 'Blair Witch'?
How does a film go from DIY experiment to box-office smash? 'Paranormal Activity' director Oren Peli explains
A gateway to all things 'New Moon'
In anticipation of 'The Twilight Saga: New Moon', Time Out is offering the chance to pick up a limited edition pack with three exclusive magazines and a free poster.
The films that deserve a TV spin-off
With Roland Emmerich suggesting he'd like to make a '2012' TV spin-off, we propose some more movie-to-TV serialisations
Time Out's 50 greatest animated films with commentary by Terry Gilliam
In celebration of the release of Pixar's 'Up' and Wes Anderson's 'Fantastic Mr Fox', read our rundown of fifty classic feature length animations
What do you think?
Post your review now