Benedetta (2021)
Directed by Paul Verhoeven
A 17th-century nun becomes entangled in a forbidden lesbian affair with a novice. But it is Benedetta's shocking religious visions that threaten to shake the Church to its core.
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Virginie Efira (who had a supporting role in Elle) perfectly channels the alluring manipulations of Benedetta, and her performance belongs in the same conversations praising Vanessa Redgrave in The Devils (1971) or Lucyna Winnicka in Mother Joan of Angels (1961).
But “Benedetta” doesn’t match the transgressive, blasphemous heights of, say, Ken Russell‘s “The Devils” (in which it wasn’t merely a wooden doll being used as a dildo but a charred human femur), because it ends all its scenes with a wink and a nudge.
What Verhoeven takes from the story is the absolute corruption of the Church and the (im)possibilities of making a modern nunsploitation flick worthy of splitting a bill with Ken Russell's The Devils .
Well, we get scenes of Charlotte Rampling’s Mother Superior hunting down a wooden dildo shaped like the Virgin Mary, and a nude torture sequence involving devices and costumes inspired by either the Spanish Inquisition or David Cronenberg’s Dead Ringers or both.
There’s a definite eeriness to the masculine vocalizations of Jesus through her person in sequences which recall the hysteria of The Crucible (1996).
The helmer operates in the same broad, manipulative strokes that Mel Gibson brought to “The Passion of the Christ,” reducing all but Benedetta to one-dimensional agendas.
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It’s these details that Verhoeven and David Birke‘s screenplay, which is adapted from a book based on the shook clerk’s writings, leans into heavily, and with Verhoeven on perhaps the most overtly tacky directorial form we’ve seen from him since “Showgirls” the defiantly secular miracle here is that any themes emerge at all.
Later in the film, during a love scene of mutual masturbation the sound effects are again surprisingly detailed, making the rather heightened erotic scene—though pretty restrained compared to Verhoeven’s swimming pool splashing sex in Showgirls —feel more explicit than it is.
Paul Verhoeven, at least, is a provocateur with pedigree, though I’ve never personally fallen for much beyond Robocop, as even in his best work, his baser instincts tend to leave a sour taste (the rape scene in Showgirls being the preeminent example of a sorry-I-just- can’t crossed line).
It’s long been known that Paul Verhoeven, the man behind such taboo-breaking movies as Basic Instinct , Showgirls and Elle , has been fascinated by the life of Jesus Christ.
Telling the true story of a lesbian Italian nun from the Middle Ages who had visions of Jesus, Benedetta is brought to the screen, naturally enough, by Paul Verhoeven, the director of Showgirls.
The notorious filmmaker Paul Verhoeven (“Showgirls”) has never been subtle, and even fans who appreciate his penchant for outrageousness will find his nunsploitation biopic, “Benedetta,” overheated.
Bergman’s The Seventh Seal looms large in Verhoeven’s toolbox (composer Anne Dudley even incorporates that film’s ‘Dies Irae’ chant in her score), but we can’t help being reminded too, in scenes set during a plague outbreak, of the ‘bring out your dead!’ clichés of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
The vibe of the film most closely recalls his 1985 English language debut, Flesh+Blood , an underrated entry in his filmography before Hollywood made him infamous.
It is amazing that Paul Verhoeven, the only person to both direct Starship Troopers (1997) and pen a scholarly monograph on the historical Jesus, can pull off being a theologian of holy eros and a flagrant nun-fetish guy in the same movie.
The Danish director of Total Recall, Basic Instinct, Showgirls and Starship Troopers has never been one for subtlety, but this queer thriller and anti-Catholic screed sets a new high in lowbrow revelry.
A quarter-century after Hollywood exiled Verhoeven for the sins of Showgirls (or more accurately, the disappointing box office of Starship Troopers and Hollow Man), Benedetta marks the latest unlikely but not exactly improbable triumph for the Dutch provocateur.
The veteran Dutch filmmaker Paul Verhoeven (“Basic Instinct“/”Starship Troopers”), a somewhat scholar on the teachings of Christianity, who always wanted to make a film on Jesus, comes the closest here in this campy but shallow film that’s a blend of religious images with masochism.
The director of “Robocop,” “Showgirls,” and “Starship Troopers” has never had much use for subtlety or unspoken yearning, and his unholy adaptation of Judith C. Brown’s history book “Immodest Acts” feels closer in spirit to “The Devils” than “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” even before the film supplements its source material with a dick-less Christ, demonic omens, and a COVID-ready subplot about the efficacy of lockdown measures against the Plague.
The director of RoboCop and Starship Troopers latest film Benedetta recounts a somewhat heightened version of the story of Sister Benedetta who joined the Pescian Convent in the 1600’s.
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Bergman’s The Seventh Seal looms large in Verhoeven’s toolbox (composer Anne Dudley even incorporates that film’s ‘Dies Irae’ chant in her score), but we can’t help being reminded too, in scenes set during a plague outbreak, of the ‘bring out your dead!’ clichés of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
It’s the “Blue Is the Warmest Color” problem all over again — not so much the male gaze (DP Jeanne Lapoirie is a woman; she has shot several queer classics, including “Wild Reeds” and “BPM”) as the conceit that two inexperienced female lovers, deprived of role models, would have porn-caliber sex their first time out, changing positions multiple times for the benefit of a steamy montage.