![]() ![]() ![]() Digital serpents, Jesus as a hot and lethal knight and the already renowned wooden dildo whittled from bottom of a Virgin Mary statuette lend levity to the provocations (even if Verhoeven dubiously denies any intention of using his films to provoke), making for a wild time.Ĭoming off of the (relatively) prestige-y Elle, Verhoeven doubles down on his ongoing concerns regarding spirituality and the ways female desire and agency are represented in cinema. I haven’t read Brown’s source material, but I feel confident it doesn’t come close to the camp spectacle Verhoeven assembled here. Brown’s 1986 book Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy, the film likewise details the case of 17th century Catholic mystic Sister Benedetta Carlini, imprisoned for engaging in a sexual relationship with one of her nuns. Benedetta, Cannes, Cannes Film Festival, Cannes Film Festival 2021, Hit the Road, Panah Panahi, Paul Verhoevenĭutch director Paul Verhoeven’s “lesbian nun movie” Benedetta may have taken two extra years to land (Verhoeven’s hip surgery in 2019 prevented him from completing post-production in time for that year’s Cannes), but its prologue wastes no time informing the audience of its mischievous timbre (for the handful heading into it expecting anything close to reverence), slipping in flame-farting jesters and a bird (ostensibly possessed by the Virgin Mary) dropping a turd in a bandit’s eye at our young heroine’s request. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |