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using as a point of departure the record breaking song "domenique" by thebelgian nun sister smile, this remarkable and highly original film takes us to places, psychological, physical, real and imaginary, rarely visited in cinema. Roger Deutsch transfers the singing nun to Rome and traces the events leading to her suicide. The film, aided by a narrator, is initially dominated by a light fairy tale like aesthetic yet transforms itself into a Dantesque journey plummeting the viewer into the infernally dark depths of the protagonist. The protagonist Janine Deckers, with a Voltairesque ingenuity, joins a convent where her musical talent is at first realised and subsequently exploited by the nuns. She quits the convent to join a womens only care centre where she embarks on an intense love affair with it's head which ends in tragedy. The film is continuously permeated by the figure of Janine's father and it is the realisation of the true and sinister nature of their relationship which precipitates her downfall. Though the film is the epitome of tragedy Deutsch manages to sustain anironic treatment of his characters and the story itself which is ,at times,hilariously funny and elsewhere veils it's hauntingly disturbing nature. It is hard to find cinematic parallels for "Suor Sorriso" which seems more rooted in the Caravaggesque vision of the director, a vision I would urge any cinema goer to share.
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