Agnus Dei

First feature from the former Mrs Lars von Trier, about a young girl's pre-pubescent spell in a convent. Narratively, it's intimate but for a long time vague: young Johanne's trials and tribulations range inconsequentially across her incomprehension of her parents' reasons for abandoning her, the elder nuns' stern disapproval of her lack of religious education, and the other girls' teasing. Just when she seems better settled, the sisters start talking up her future there, striking the fear of God into her. The sequencing is distinctly choppy, and while the director aims for a sensitive touch, the prettifying sensibility (soundtrack, costumes) seems to have waylaid her.