Benedetta

Octogenarian provocateur Paul Verhoeven (Turkish Delight, RoboCop, Black Book) proves he’s still as much of an enfant terrible as ever. His latest film Benedetta is based on Judith C. Brown’s 1986 non-fiction book Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy (though it might be more accurate to say it is based on the title of that book). Brown’s scholarly text explored a historical investigation conducted by the Roman Catholic Church into the abbess of a convent in 17th century Tuscany who expressed her divine love of Christ through a lesbian affair. As a result of the investigation, Sister Benedetta Carlini was found guilty of sapphism. Verhoeven's film imagines the circumstances that led to the trial, and it imagines them pretty much the way you'd expect from the director of Showgirls, Basic Instinct, and Elle. 

Benedetta falls well within the quasi women-in-prison subgenre of Nunsploitation; and while I can’t claim this is a great film, I would be willing to call Benedetta the Citizen Kane of Nunsploitation pictures. Working with production designer Katia Wyszkop and cinematographer Jeanne Lapoirie (both known for their work with another provocative filmmaker, François Ozon), Verhoeven crafts a visually dazzling period look with sundrenched exteriors and candlelit interiors all beautifully composed for the widescreen frame. Virginie Efira (who played the young wife in Elle) delivers an intense and often surprising performance as Benedetta. Charlotte Rampling relishes her role as the stern Mother Abbess who is more concerned with maintaining her position in the church hierarchy than in true spiritual service. Daphne Patakia captivates as Bartolomea, the novitiate who enters the convent to escape her incestuous father and becomes Benedetta’s friend, ally, and lover. And Lambert Wilson has a ball with the villainous role of The Nuncio, who overseas Benedetta’s trial with the enhanced interrogation techniques of the Inquisition.

Benedetta the film exists somewhere at the intersection of crass exploitation and serious art, just as Benedetta the character dances on a blurry line between religious and erotic ecstasy. The eye of the beholder determines which side of the line either is on. This is unquestionably an erotic movie, but to say it is seen through the male gaze would be a spectacular understatement. Benedetta encompasses the full “Verhoeven gaze” of boobs, blood, and bombast. Beautifully lit and composed (but nonetheless oggling) shots of nubile female nudity and girl-on-girl action coexist with scenes of torcher and self-flagellation that are photographed just as lovingly. With plenty of authoritarian satire, sophomoric scatological humor, and a true believer's genuine fascination with religious iconography and themes, you've got perhaps the ultimate culmination of this filmmaker's obsessions.

Even by today's “there are no standards” standards, the movie possesses an amazing ability to shock in deliciously blasphemous ways. Unfortunately, the credibility-stretching path required to arrive at Benedetta's most scandalously sacrilegious moment (and prop) is much too hokey. Verhoeven and co-screenwriter David Birke also concoct some absurdly anachronistic dialogue that pushes some of the love scenes out of the well-established historical context of the rest of the picture and into the realm of contemporary soft-core erotica. At times Benedetta is laugh-out-loud funny, but, again, it's a blurry line between a sharp satire of Catholic Church hypocrisy and a campy, childish boundary-pusher that only ends up mocking itself, and there will undoubtedly be viewers who come down hard on both sides.