Product Details

• Actors: Catherine Deneuve, John Malkovich, Luís Miguel Cintra, Leonor Silveira, Duarte de Almeida
• Directors: Manoel de Oliveira
• Format: Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English, French, Portuguese
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Studio: Fox Lorber
• DVD Release Date: July 2, 2002
• Run Time: 90 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000065AZC
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #35,940 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "The Convent" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Philosophical Movie, October 4, 2001

By 

Reinaldo de Medeiros (Rio de Janeiro, RJ Brazil) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Convent [VHS] (VHS Tape)

"O Convento" is a very strange movie, but is a enchanted movie also. Let-me try to explain this. If you don't like philosophy keep distance of this movie, but if you like some philosophical concepts from Nitzche, (specifically Zarathustra) you need to take this. It is not just another "just to fun movie", instead of this, is a movie that make you think about the evil and the goodness.
And, last but not least, you get a movie with Catherine Deneuve and John Malkovich but pay attention in a very impressive performance of Luis Miguel and the beauty Leonor Silveira that compose Piedade with delicate. Luiz Miguel and Leonor Silveira outperform Malkovich and Deneuve.

The only major problem: The sound isn't very good and some takes aren't good illuminated.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good and evil in ancient Portugal, December 17, 2008

By 

andrew (Santa Clara, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Convent (DVD)

A memorable film, very odd, and more than a little creepy. Interestingly set at an medieval monastery in Portugal, this little fable of good and evil has an opaque plot and relatively slow pace that some will find frustrating.

The monastery has descended into devil-worship, and its leader has strayed from proper reverence for Lucifer. (SPOILER ALERT: THE NEXT SENTENCE EXPLAINS THE UNDERLYING PLOT OF THE FILM.) Catherine Deneuve's character arrives on the scene, and takes care of the problem; she is Satan disciplining a follower. The interest in the film, other than the setting, very atmospheric music, and good acting, is the unexpected way the dark angel appears as an apparently unthreatening woman, and punishes her wayward disciple.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A strange little trip, September 16, 2007

By 

Kenneth Williams (Richmond, Virginia United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Convent (DVD)

First of all, I have no idea why this movie is called The Convent. It takes place in a monastery.

This is one of the most sincerely bizarre films I have ever seen. Moodily photographed at an (real) abandoned monastery on the Portuguese coast, this chamber drama of six characters (three couples) is a throwback to the Faust and Eden stories, both at once, and seems, despite the literary and Biblical antecedents, completely fresh and unexpected, peppered with offbeat humor and framed with a sometimes mournful, sometimes terrifying musical score by the Russian composer by Sofia Gubaidulina. (If you fall in love with the music, as I did, the pieces are called "Officitorum" and "The Seven Last Words of Christ" and both are available on CD in excellent recordings. "Officitorum is a LONG, wildly expressionist violin piece which ends in the more formal and haunting part showcased in the movie.) The international cast speaks English, French and Portuguese indifferently.

To people with a little patience, a sense of playfulness and an eye for the strange and beautiful, this film is a real Halloween treat. After having watched the movie, you don't remember it so much as a movie. You remember it more as a dream. Days later you'll ask yourself: Did I see what I thought I saw, or am I imagining it?

Frankly, I'm thrilled The Convent gotten this new inexpensive DVD release.