MOVIERAPTURE

Cloistered Nun: Runa's Confession
(Shudojo Runa no kokuhaku) (1976)
Directed by Masaru Konuma

Artistic & Entertainment Value: * * ½

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Synopsis
When Runa (Runa Takamura) catches her lover having sex with her sister, she becomes a Catholic nun, only to be raped by a priest (which prompts her to begin a lesbian affair with one of the other nuns). Three years later, Runa is getting ready to depart for Africa, but, before she goes, she visits her sister and her former lover. She informs them that she has forgiven them for their misdeeds and even wants to provide them with inside information about a real estate deal that could make them both a considerable amount of money. What these two do not know, however, is that Runa is plotting to get her revenge on those who have hurt her in the past.

Analysis
Though Masaru Konuma's softcore erotic film Cloistered Nun: Runa's Confession has some appealing elements, these are never sufficient to prevent the movie from being, on the whole, rather dull.

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A substantial portion of the film consists of depictions of various characters having sex. Regrettably, not only are a good number of these scenes tedious, but there are so many of them that the movie can be a chore to watch. Over the course of Cloistered Nun: Runa's Confession, the viewer is shown Runa having sex with another nun and being raped by a priest (both while ringing the convent church's bells and in a barnyard), her sister being raped by the man she once seduced and smearing ink on her crotch so that she can make prints of her vulva to give to her numerous lovers, these men, having discovered one another (and how they have been manipulated), gang raping the woman, and much, much more. There is quite a bit of sex in the movie. Unfortunately, while a few of these sequences are well handled, most are not. On top of that, none of the performers are particularly attractive. Many are actually a little homely. Not one of them was someone I would care to see naked.

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The film's narrative could, perhaps, have redeemed the work (it has some reasonably interesting elements), but it is given so little time, and is so constantly interrupted with sex scenes, that it ultimately fails to be engaging. As soon as the viewer finds himself involved in the story, he is presented with another sex sequence which obliterates that curiosity entirely.

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Whatever its shortcomings, the movie is not wholly without virtues. Though generally pedestrian visually, there are a number of beautifully filmed moments interspersed throughout it. The director, for instance, shows Runa catching her sister and her lover having sex while a fire rages in the foreground, partially obscuring the pair, presents the two women standing alone and chatting before a bare concrete wall, and, in one particularly noteworthy sequence, divides his screen into thirds so that he can simultaneously show three sets of persons having sex.

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Cloistered Nun: Runa's Confession is not a terrible film, but it is not a very good one, either. It has a few virtues, but these are greatly outweighed by its faults.

Review by Keith Allen

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