Mother Joan of the Angels

What if demonic possession is souls trapped in human failure?

“Mother Joan of the Angels” is inspired by the infamous case of the demonic possession of the nuns of Loudun (France) in 1634—a historical trauma also adapted, ten years later, by Ken Russell in his cult film “The Devils.”

However, Jerzy Kawalerowicz’s adaptation rejects excess in favor of something far more disturbing: a tale of spiritual rot with a theological approach to demons viewed through both Jewish and Christian perspectives, daring to imagine that maybe Satan created the world—for how else could such evil exist in a world created by God?

This is not a film obsessed with scandal or erotic provocation, but with the slow, corrosive terror that lingers after violence has already been sanctified. The story unfolds in the aftermath of Father Grandier’s execution, a death that solves nothing and brings only new torments.

The nuns remain possessed by evil forces no one dares to name. Into this sealed, suffocating world enters Father Suryn, the fifth priest sent to confront a dread that has already consumed the convent and the surrounding inhabitants—a final attempt at exorcism that feels more like a choreographed descent into despair than a salvation.

The true nightmare of “Mother Joan of the Angels” lies in its images. Shot in ruthless black and white by cinematographer Jerzy Wójcik, the film stages a constant clash: light against void, flesh against stone, faith against madness.

White dominates the frame with almost aggressive assertion. Nature, habits, walls, and skies all appear bleached of warmth, purity rendered indistinguishable from impurity.

This erasing whiteness does not cleanse; it becomes a visual weapon, smothering the screen and trapping the viewer inside a frozen moral landscape where sin hides.

The lack of color forces the imagination to supply what the image withholds, making every shadow feel infected and every silence fueled with anxiety.

The film’s panic sharpens through its social context, transforming the historical record of Loudun into a complex regime governed by misogyny disguised as divine order—a system where female suffering is ignored, converted into punishment, and ritualized.

The nuns’ possession reads not as supernatural invasion, but as the physical eruption of repression—a scream forced out through turmoil, blasphemy, and sacrilege.

Their bodies become places of theological warfare, supervised by men who confuse control with faith and cruelty with morality. In “Mother Joan of the Angels,” horror does not come from demons alone; it is embedded in institutions, doctrine, and the cold certainty that obedience is holier than understanding.

This film is a stunning work of existential revulsion—one where God remains silent, evil feels methodical, and the most terrifying presence is not the Devil, but the system that needs him to justify its violence.

This is the kind of horror that stays with you not as an imaginary fear, but as moral discomfort.

The fallen angels on Earth and Satan as the true creator of the world become an interpretation where meaning is turned against the idea of an almighty God—suggesting that forgiveness alone may not be the answer to a fair and peaceful world.