Dood van een non

Summary

1975 not only saw the release of Chantal Akermans subversive Jeanne Dielman, but also witnessed the Flemish film and media world on tenterhooks at the prospect of the adaptation of one of the most important post-war Flemish novels: the best-seller Dood van een non by the Catholic film critic Maria Rosseels. To everyones surprise, Paul Collet and Pierre Drouot, the bad boys of Flemish film, sought to follow their string of lucrative films with a more serious, almost metaphysical subject.

Death of a Nun is a well-constructed character analysis of a young religious woman who is paralysed and promises God that she will become a nun if she is cured and discovers love. She keeps her promise, but gradually begins to lose her faith.

Although Collet and Drouot stuck fairly closely to the novel, they added an entirely new ending shot in India, which caused a certain amount of controversy because of its atheistic tenor, particularly in Catholic circles. In the Netherlands, the film even appeared in a shortened and re-adapted version, co-producer Gerrit Visscher of Cinecentrum considering the ending too implausible.

Collet and Drouot spent three years working on Death of a Nun; the result was a technically superb film with wonderful photography and rich symbolic imagery. At the time of its release, Death of a Nun was the most prestigious Flemish film ever made. Out of a total budget of 25.000.000 Belgian francs, it was awarded a record subsidy of 10.000.000 francs. Unprecedented too was the promotional campaign leading up to its release in seven Belgian towns.