Benedetta movie review: A ride through horny church and sexy jail

Paul Verhoeven, you horny motherfucker, you’ve done it again.

Verhoeven is one of the few filmmakers who have made it a point to confront the brutality and puritanical nature of contemporary cinema. Verhoeven’s signature style revolves around doing. The MostWhen it comes to depictions of violence and sex, he combines gratuitous aesthetics with uncommon thoughtfulness. That approach has earned him a lot of success, even if it’s usually been delayed until long after his films premiere.

Verhoeven’s ’80s and ’90s stretch of big-budget Hollywood films are dazzling in retrospect. He made five films with uneven commercial and critical success — RoboCop, Total Recall, Basic Instinct, Showgirls Starship Troopers — but almost all of them have since been reappraised and praised for the uncanny ways they blend uncompromised sociopolitical satire and genre convention.

Paul Verhoeven has been slowed down and has taken his work outside Hollywood. Benedetta, his first film since 2016’s acclaimed thriller Elle, is perhaps the most openly provocative film of 2021, and maybe of Verhoeven’s filmography as well. Benedetta The film focuses on the religious scandals and sexual taboo of lesbian affairs in convents. The movie, which is provocative in all senses, can draw viewers in by its humorous study of faith and sexuality, or turn them away with its open-minded titillation. In this film, as in many of Verhoeven’s previous works, those two opposing forces are very much the point.

IFC Films Photo

It is 17th-century Italy where Benedetta, a nun (Virginie Efira), has been experiencing the supernatural touch in her daily life ever since she was a child. She believes God spoke to her, which has been confirmed by many small miracles in her childhood that have spared her family. Her family decided to give her life to God and place her in a convent. Bartolomea, Daphne Patakia’s sister and her everyday life at the convent are disrupted by their secret affair. Her visions turn erotic and she is drawn into a spiritual awakening.

When Benedetta begins to exhibit stigmata and speak with the voice of God, her status in the convent rapidly rises, threatening the authority of the Abbess (Charlotte Rampling) in charge of the convent — who also suspects Benedetta and Bartolomea’s affair. As Benedetta’s power grows within the convent, some see her as a saint, the only thing keeping the plague away from their villa. Many others suspect she is lying about her visions. No one really knows about their sexual nature, but the convent is a political place — Benedetta desiring power is sinful enough, and if she isn’t telling the truth, she may be guilty of more.

Based on the Book Imodest Acts in Renaissance Italy: A Lesbian Nun’s LifeJudith C. Bowen BenedettaIt is an eerie genre mix. It’s presented at times with the severity and airs of a historical drama, but injected with the mean wit of a black comedy, and all wrapped in an erotic thriller. This sexy comedy delights in acts that blasphemy. It juxtaposes sacred and profane. Benedetta is shown a statuette depicting Christ’s crucified body and orders her to take off all of it.

You can see the similarities. Benedetta’s provocations bare their teeth: If the sisters of the convent are married to Christ in word, why not in deed? What is the difference between carnal and spiritual desires? Verhoeven asks many questions BenedettaThis leaves little room for interpretation and answers. The film is similar to the Bible, which the Catholic Church claimed authority over but prevented the general public from reading. It allows for endless interpretation and encourages rejection.

Others may be interested in BenedettaIt is too exploitative to be taken seriously. That criticism has its merits: The movie’s lasciviousness can be read as being meant for the camera as much as it is for the characters. The movie’s queerness could be seen as a sham meant only to entertain straight men. But in the context of the rigid confines of Catholicism at the peak of its powers, Verhoeven’s argument for Benedetta’s extremes is compelling. He opposes the holy to the profane.

All throughout Benedetta, God is just a cover, and few are actually protected when He’s invoked. The convent claims it does the Lord’s work, but it only accepts girls whose families can pay a “dowry.” A papal ambassador arrives in town, but brings the plague with him. Bartolomea, however, becomes disposable as Benedetta starts to claim her sainthood. Verhoeven says that if desire is denied or hidden behind euphemisms, it can’t be understood and unexamined desires can lead to thoughtless consumption.

IFC Films Photo

In some forms of Christianity, the ultimate sin is blasphemy — words or deeds that demonstrate contempt for God, or a desire to desecrate what is holy. It’s also a convenient sin, a flexible charge that can be levied against any opponent of the religious order in question. In the Church’s eyes, a blasphemer’s very Meditation of the act they’re accused of could be seen as a shock and affront to the status quo. That sets up a scenario where the faithful can feel they shouldn’t even attempt to understand the accused and their beliefs, lest they find themselves on the road to blasphemy as well.

This is ultimately Verhoeven’s wickedest trick in BenedettaA film that dares people to consider it offensive, or blasphemous. It bears the stigma of smut because on one level it is, an irreverent and mischievous work that aims to shock you with its prurience — but it’s also about that shock as another system of control. It’s like RoboCop’s violent deconstruction of how capitalism deforms cities and Starship Troopers’ For fostering fascist culture, a violent takedown of the war process is a means to do so BenedettaCan be read as an artistic tract that criticizes a culture of oppression, in which the collective negation of sexual diversity in human beings for the sake of sainthood is just one way to produce more horrible sinners.

BenedettaIt will open in cinemas and digital rental available on December 21.