I have been eagerly looking forward to seeing this movie and reviewing it. Hell, I’ve been itching for the chance to talk about its director for quite some time. Filmmaker Paul Verhoeven has one of the most fascinating, if not outright legendary, filmographies of any cinema creative I’ve come across. After some modest successes in his native Holland over the ‘70s and early ‘80s, Verhoeven moved to the United States and had one hell of a hot streak. RoboCop, Total Recall, Basic Instinct, Showgirls, Starship Troopers, and Hollow Man, all one right after the other over the course of thirteen years. This is why I love auteur theory: So many of the idiosyncrasies in those films suddenly make a bit more sense once you realise they’re from the same mind.
And after a brief return to the Netherlands for 2006’s Black Book, he has since settled down in France where he put together the immensely uncomfortable (and I say that as someone who sat through Una and The Nightingale) Ella. For as much as I can appreciate the characterisation in that film, it also shows a darker side to Verhoeven’s iconic lack of taste that is not easy to sit through, and not exactly for the best of reasons. As someone with a serious admiration for the man’s work at his peak (Showgirls isn’t a so-bad-it’s-good movie, it’s a legitimately great film, and I will die on that hill), I was truly hoping that his latest wouldn’t be more of the same unpleasantness. And indeed, this is quite a different beast from the likes of Ella.
To put it simply, this is an exploitation flick. Specifically, it’s a Nunsploitation flick, a sub-genre with its roots in films like The Lady Of Monza and Ken Russell’s The Devils, which primarily involves nuns in a convent dealing with demonic possession and/or insatiable lust for a certain male visitor or just for each other. It’s the kind of genre foundation that fits right in with Verhoeven’s perpetually horny sensibilities, and he brings the same brand of knowingly silly moods and tones that helped make Showgirls and Starship Troopers so damn effective as sly satire. Well, when approached with the right willingness to go along with the nonsense, at least.
The story being told is that of Benedetta Carlini, a nun in 17th century Italy who is a rather important figure in Queer history as a historical lesbian. As portrayed by Virginie Efira, there’s a definite cheekiness to her mannerisms and actions that fits with the tone of the script, but she also gives a genuine sense of piety to the role as well. Her sapphic excursions with fellow novice Bartolomea (Daphne Patakia) are mixed up with revelatory visions of Christ himself, making her this Corpus Christi-esque figure that is supposedly a sinner, yet much more of a saint than anyone else around her.
Faith, by and large, is the main thrust of the narrative here, specifically the ways in which it is shown before one’s godhead and one’s peers. From Benedetta’s arrival at the abbey as a child (because if a child bride was good enough to give birth to Jesus, surely they’re good enough to wed him as well, right?) to her adult years, the idea of suffering is pushed into her head. The notion that the best way, possibly the only way, to show her fealty to God is through suffering. It’s one of the bigger pieces of the fear-based environment that organised religion tends to create, instilling existential dread and pain in people as a means of better controlling them.
And then it contrasts that with Benedetta’s own actions. While there’s quite a bit of theatricality behind her visions (to the point where the film is oddly ambiguous on the question of how ‘real’ said visions actually are), it’s her relationship with Bartolomea that puts her under the most scrutiny. That showing love for another (physical, emotional, spiritual, etc.) is inherently sinful, particularly from and towards women. To that point, we have quite possibly the greatest casting in any Verhoeven film with Lambert ‘The Merovingian’ Wilson as a Catholic diplomat, who gets brought in to basically discredit Benedetta’s words and visions so that the status quo can be maintained. The idea that actual love, the kind Jesus is meant to embody, means less than the brutality in which he gave his life… yeah, there’s something seriously wrong with that notion. I’m not an asshole, I’m just a little confused.
As a depiction of queer discrimination, it already has some real teeth (helped by how the sex scenes aren’t nearly as graphic as the director’s past work may lead one to expect; there’s no dance-fucking to be found here), but the way it extrapolates that into a look at how love, across the board, is integral to notions of faith is quite remarkable. It has no shame in creating this giddy atmosphere concerning Benedetta’s sexcapades (actually, it has little to no shame about anything that occurs on-screen), and yet it treats the subject of faith with a commendable amount of seriousness. As it ramps up to the finale, this film packs some heavy gravitas into the exploration of its themes, and rather than being strictly sacrilegious, I’d argue that it works as a reaffirmation of faith and, more pointedly, the importance of using it as a force for good. Just with a lot of full-frontal nudity and Mother Mary dildos. Just because it’s goofy doesn’t mean it can’t be thoughtful; it’s Paul Verhoeven in a nutshell.
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