PAUL VERHOVEN’S BENEDETTA
Nuns, Lesbians, Miracles + Charlotte Rampling
Benedetta Carlini was a mystic and nun in counter-reformation Italy. While serving as abbess of the Convent of the Mother of God, at Pescia she embarked on a sexual relationship with fellow nun, Sister Bartolomea. When this relationship came to the attention of the Papacy, who sought to weed out potentially insubordinate mystics, Benedetta’s faith was called into question. Eventually, when Bartolomea was interrogated, she admitted that while Benedetta was allegedly possessed by the spirit of a male demon known as Splenditello (yep, that’s the name all right), they engaged in what Shakespeare called “making the beast with two backs.” There’s a lot to unpack there. The Papacy was none too pleased with this information, and subsequently stripped Benedetta of her rank and imprisoned her.
Yes, everything you just read did really happen, and no you would not be wrong in thinking what the hell? (Sorry, was that blasphemous?) After reading it. In fact, the story really stuck with Dutch director Paul Verhoeven, because he decided to turn it into a movie. Now that is blasphemous. On the subject of whether or not the film is blasphemous, Verhoeven was quoted as saying “I do not understand really how you can be blasphemous about something that happened. You cannot basically change history after the fact. You can talk about that was wrong or not, but you cannot change history. I think the word blasphemy for me in this case is stupid.” Amen to that!
The film, succinctly titled Benedetta, follows the trials and tribulations of the titular nun, played by Virginie Efira. It had its world premiere at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival where it competed for, but lost, the Palme d’Or. In addition to Efira, the movie stars Lambert Wilson, Daphne Patakia, and Charlotte Rampling. Benedetta received mixed to positive reviews from critics. While it currently holds an 84% approval rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, we would be remiss if we didn’t also point out it has a 69% on Metacritc. Yes, even we are prone to a base sex joke time and again.
On a more serious note, the film is, as you can imagine, quite an erotic one. Yes, there is plenty of nudity and sex scenes. We’ve spoken a good bit here at PROVOKR about the importance of how sex scenes are filmed. To Verhoeven’s credit, both Efira and Patakia, who play the lesbian couple at the center of the film, have spoken about how Verhoeven created an open and safe environment for them to craft the sex scenes in a way that felt authentic to the characters, and even fun to film for the actors.
Benedetta is scheduled to be released on December 3, 2021. Check out the trailer below:
