Letters of a Portuguese Nun (2014) Poster

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4/10
It belongs more on stage than it does on screen
jordondave-280854 March 2024
(2014) Letters of a Portuguese Nun/ Les lettres portugaises (In French with English subtitles) HISTORICAL DRAMA

Associate produced, co-written and directed by Bruno François-Boucher that stars Ségolène Point in a one person performance as if she is on stage, but in this case she enters into a monastery dresses up as a nun reciting actual letters discovered from 1669 we find out her name is Mariana Alcoforado. And although the nun's lover/ soldier, Noël de Chamilly (Nicolas Herman) is shown, he does not have an actual role other than he often writes back to her. At some point we also find out he does not even read the letters she sends him, he just sticks them into a drawer while she pleads her heart out. Then it is like, at the end it was soon revealed that a portion of her actual letters were lost at sea, she is also seen burning a letter a or two. Meaning that if some of the letters were either burned or destroyed, how were historians know what was said. It belongs more on a stage than it does on screen.
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8/10
Flawless acting, exquisitely shot
mplaza26 February 2024
I didn't know of Segolène Point, yet a quick search over the internet revealed she's a theatre producer and actress, and it shows. In this ten-year old film, one of the handful she appears to have made, she shows remarkable acting skills, it is no mean feat she spends over an hour practically alone though in different settings, reciting her lines whilst keeping the viewer's attention. Her diction is impeccable, her presence immense. The film is exquisitely shot, very intimately framed and filmed in stunning locations in Portugal and France. The officer to whom the nun purportedly (there is some disagreement on the actual authorship of the letters) writes the correspondence is just sort of fleetingly presented, perhaps there ought to be more of him in the film; the way it is he might as well be omitted. Recommended.
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