A monastery in Tuscany in the 17th century: the novice Benedetta has lived out her faith in religious fantasies since she was a child. Jesus hanging on the cross asks her to become his wife and to embrace him. When she wakes up from the trance, both her hands and forehead are bleeding.
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From then on she is venerated as “God’s chosen one” and replaces the abbess of the monastery. This position enables the young woman to live out her lesbian desire behind the monastery walls.
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Sex and violence are the common thread through the work of the Dutch director Paul Verhoeven (“Turkish Fruits”, “Basic Instinct”, “Total Recall”). In his last, critically acclaimed film, “Elle”, Isabelle Huppert plays a woman who seduces her rapist in order to regain control of her life.
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“Benedetta” also tells of an extreme female self-empowerment. The young novice appropriates Christian iconography and plays with its signs and symbols. In addition, she shamelessly exploits her position of power within the Catholic Church.
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To tell this story, Verhoeven quotes with high-gloss pictures an erotic trash genre called nunsploitation that was popular in the 1970s, especially in Italy. In Benedetta’s religious visions, a hippie-looking Jesus fights snakes with a sword. A figure of Mary is carved into a dildo, and you can watch nuns having forbidden sex through holes in the wall.
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As crazy, as crazy as the story and the style of this film may be – Paul Verhoeven takes serious criticism of the church. He shows the Catholic institution as a degenerate community that uses Benedatta’s visions for self-promotion and treats the believers like a dumb mass of disposal. With “Benedetta” the now 83-year-old director would like to challenge his audience in the best possible way.
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“Benedetta” by Paul Verhoeven
France 2021, 127 minutes
mit Virginie Efria, Charlotte Rampling, Daphné Patakia, Lambert Wilson
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