Ravissement

A small, empty boudoir slowly becomes populated by a series of young women, their still and open expressions gradually engulfing the screen, as a nun narrates an account of religious rapture. Belgian filmmaker Olivier Smolders continues a brilliant exploration of religious ecstasy, figured in and epitomized by the erotic, death-defying gaze of the camera lens, in this sublime black-and-white treatment set to excerpts from the theological writings of Saint Teresa of Avila. – Robert Avila