Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz's novella Mother Joan of Angels was based on the same incident-the trial of Father Urbain Grandier-that inspired Aldous Huxley's Devils of Loudun (and Ken Russell's The Devils). This adaptation of the story is a powerful study of religious/sexual hysteria, filmed in striking imagery and somber tones. Violent, erotic, austere, but most of all believable, it is faithful to the historical events at Loudun though transposed to a distinctly Polish setting by some of the key artists of the Polish New Wave. Joan is a sensual Mother Superior accused of being possessed by evil spirits. A chaste young priest, sent to exorcise her demons, is instead drawn inexorably toward her and is driven to commit increasingly desperate acts in an attempt to save her. The film, according to Kawalerowicz, is "a protest against all dogmatism, but at the same time it is about love....Possession and madness are nothing but revolts of human nature against old allies and conformities we are forced to put up with."