Benedetta

Lesbian nunspoitation by Verhoeven set in a 17th century Tuscan monastery. Verhoeven has made an unconventional erotic religious drama that is not afraid of nudity and violence. The actress who plays Benedetta, Virginie Efira, looks very good at 45, and her full frontal nude will please many a male eye, but the rebellious Daphne Patakia looks good too – she is the hottest nun I have ever seen. The combination of sinful nuns and a corrupt Christian institution works surprisingly well. The historical period where Europe was gripped by the Plague, the very intense and exciting lesbian sex scenes, the Stigmata vignettes, the great nightmares of Benedetta (the snake scene or the brutal killing of the knights, surprised by the raw gore). I liked the harsh rules the nuns had to follow and the intense finale is solid, with a cool trial, torture and chaos of the townspeople. The pacing is slower in places, but the film managed to keep my attention thanks to the attractive interludes. Definitely a noteworthy affair. (11/12/2022)

On the verge of Verhoeven! But only at the borders of the Schengen area, so that overseas, Catholic groups don't pelt him with stones, and the intimacy coordinator who annoys Sean Bean doesn't disrupt filming. Whether there's a chopper under Benedetta's bed for the stigmata, whether the plague sores reveal flesh and blood, or whether the showgirl from the Tuscan convent climbs the right rungs of the career ladder isn't really important when Paul feels like a little kid who can do whatever he wants. That lecherous old man in the director's chair may have aching hips, but he hasn't lost his magical subversiveness. (11/08/2022)

If it was cut down to 90 minutes, I would say that it is a daring erotic-religious psychological thriller portraying temptation and desire for forbidden fruit from the point of view of two nuns who find their way to each other through sexual practices, of which there is no shortage and which are also quite explicit. This is also the reason for the audience's enthusiasm, because Paul Verhoeven is a big name in the field and when he takes on something as unorthodox and "new" as Benedetta, he simply reaps success. However, it's perhaps a little too long and drawn out for me, and apart from the religious dialogue, which is nothing interesting, and the eroticism, there's not really much and the film didn't leave a deeper mark on me as a result. I can understand the enthusiastic response, but I can equally understand the audience's dissatisfaction. I'm somewhere in between, but I tend to lean towards the latter group, unfortunately. (30/11/2021)

Verhoeven devoted his entire oeuvre to bringing back to the sacred (genre) worlds the profane (excessively physical and emotional) aspects that had been pushed out of them by the previous tradition. His (perhaps only for now) last film thus represents a magnificent culmination of this effort, as he turns his attention to the Church itself, following his treatment of Hollywood genres and national historical milestones and local social phenomena. Benedetta thus delivers a caustically funny deconstruction of the Church as a pragmatic apparatus based on the illusion of hope. As in his previous films, this time Verhoeven offers a seemingly one-dimensional spectacle. But lying just below the wholly functional (in terms of genre) and, for many, outrageous, grim and entertaining surface, there is a broad spectrum of thought-provoking layers. For some, Benedetta will remain a cynical or even exploitative and objectifying mess, but for others it will be, among other things, a sophisticated portrait of the wonderfully ambiguous title character. Through her, personal and organised faith is revealed to be an instrument of institutional and personal power and, paradoxically, within a certain historical context, of possible emancipation, though only in the sense of career and existence, but peculiarly not in terms of personal freedom. And, through the protagonist’s development, it also shows that spiritual foolishness and physical orgasm have more in common than many want to admit. (03/09/2021)

Somehow I feel that since Paul Verhoeven turned eighty, he now has no need to please anyone, and so he just went and made a completely self-indulgent new movie. I think that the end result is a total nunsploitation B-movie rather than an A-grade art movie. The director once again shows off his great ability to be provocative and his black sense of humor. I am still a huge fan and therefore probably going to watch anything he makes, however, I know that Benedetta is definitely not going to be a movie for everyone. [KVIFF 2021] (28/08/2021)