La Religieuse

Unlike the shadowy, possibly non-existent conspirators of Paris Nous Appartient, the heavies in Rivette's second feature are all too identifiable. An adaptation of Diderot's novel of the 1750s, its litany of woe begins with poor Suzanne being rejected by her parents and forced to become a nun. She's beaten, starved and pestered by lesbians, but eventually manages to flee the convent with the aid of a rapist priest. She winds up in a brothel, where she ends it all by jumping out of a high window. Visually uninteresting, with a 'bars' motif that's so redundant as to become irritating, it's further handicapped by Karina's depthless, unaffecting portrayal. The French censors banned the film for over a year, thus generating both notoriety and goodwill, neither justified.