Aging film provocateur manqué Paul Verhoeven has Ken Russell’s THE DEVILS/’71 meet his own infamous SHOW GIRLS/’95 on this long delayed passion project. (Passion indeed; lesbian nuns in Renaissance Italy!) Inspired (make that expanded) from trial records of a 17th Century Italian girl brought into Abbess Charlotte Rampling’s nunnery as a child, grown to be something of a religious hysteric, Sister Benedetta (Virginie Efira, apparently from the Order Bridget Bardot), fakes ‘stigmata’ with a shard of pottery to gain power and a following. Crucially, she also gains a lover in Novice Bartolomea (Daphné Patakia). Caught out by Abbess Rampling who gets no help from her male superior, too busy imagining the financial benefits of a possible cult. We could be the next Assisi! (This sidebar more interesting than anything else in here.) Then more complications from two new ‘guests,’ a Vatican Nuncio (Lambert Wilson) and Buboes from The Plague. These days, the 80-ish Verhoeven must know he can no longer count on shocking us easily and really piles on the sex & violence. (To little avail, the film cost 24 mill/grossed 4.) As to how true it all is. Well, rule-of-thumb on these ‘fact-based’ films holds that the most ridiculous thing is likeliest to be true. So please tell me those Renaissance court records of the trial mention the little wooden Virgin Mary figurine repurposed by Benedetta & Bartolomea to use as a dildo. Please, please be true!
WATCH THIS, NOT THAT//LINK: Seeing Verhoeven struggling to shock & offend, doesn’t take away from his very real talent when not mislead. Try STARSHIP TROOPERS/’97, his deeply subversive mainstream blockbuster. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2020/09/starship-troopers-1997.html
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