<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="9">BENEDETTA (2021)</h1>
Our Lady of The Virgin Review: Verhoeven's playful romance has a date with the nun's turban
The evil serpent, the scheming Charlotte Lamplin, and the Virgin Mary in the shape of sex toys—how does it all feel so pure?
Rating: ★★ ☆☆☆
Source: Peter Bradshaw
Translation/Editing: Green Brick Press
Editor-in-charge: Zhu Lingyi
Curated: Leave the bookroom behind
When watching historical films, there is a moment when you start to wonder how the crew of Carry On* will cast the film. In this film, the moment takes place in a scene during the Italian Counter-Reformation, when the arrogant and sensual pope receives a petition from the abbot of the convent at lunch about an ill-behaved nun under the abbot; then a person who looks like the pope's mistress walks in, she is pregnant, and indicates that she is breastfeeding.
The pope here is played by Lambert Wilson — though Kenneth Williams is equally competent. Joan Sims plays a reckless, pregnant retinue.
*Translator's note: Carry On is a British low-budget comedy film and television series, whose style is derived from the traditional British vaudeville performance, combining the elements of meat jokes and parodies in burlesque.
Paul Verhoeven shows us a bizarre nunsploitation film in which he does the same thing he did with the exotic dancers in the cult film Showgirls.
That film has regained its reputation in critic circles, and perhaps "Our Lady" will follow the same path. The Virgin tells the story of Benedetta Carlini, the abbot of the seventeenth-century mystical convent, who was stripped of his authority because of his relationship with another nun.
Written by Verhoeven and David Birke, the screenplay is based on Judith C. Brown's 1986 seminal study of Benedetta's sexuality and mythology, Misdemean: The Life of a Gay Nun in the Italian Renaissance.
Virginie Efira, who plays Benedetta in the film, performs with a bit of a headmistress style (which may also be mixed with her personal habits). Benedetta was a passionate young nun who claimed to have witnessed the vision of Jesus and received the holy relic.
Her lover, Bartolomea, is played by Daphne Patakia, while the frowning, cynical and anti-Semitic convent abbot Felicita is played by Charlotte Rampling.
At first, the abbot was highly suspicious of the visions seen by the young men, but the scheming she later discovered that benede tower's miracles could make her monastery famous and politically profitable.
As usual, Van Hoeven enjoyed leaving her heroine in a soft-erotic state of nakedness and staging lascivious sex scenes, and borrowed a wooden statue of the Virgin Mary to spice up one of the scenes. Eventually, when Benedetta was asked about her misconduct, the statue became the first physical evidence.
The film, such as The Devil of Ludane (1971) or a PG version of the art Tales of the Abbey (1978), also has a hint of the Red Death (1964). But arguably, these films are an attempt to give us a more secular psychological perspective on the mental imbalances of collectivity, with a hint of humor.
And Verhoeven is just using religious beliefs as a set, showing us what is obscene. The whole film is dominated by a period drama-style elegance, and the soundtrack throughout is unbearablely exaggerated.
Of course, that doesn't mean there aren't grand scenes in the film: Benedetta's hallucinatory battle with the serpent in the church is creepy and entertaining; Ramplin's last-minute performance is also impressive.
However, for this film, Verhoeven is afraid to do some murmuring confession in the confession room.
(Short commentary on the book", cannes reporter "Our Lady")
文章来源：Bradshaw, Peter. “Benedetta Review – Verhoeven's Saucy Nun Romance Goes out with a Wimple.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 9 July 2021, www.theguardian.com/film/2021/jul/09/benedetta-review-paul-verhoeven-charlotte-rampling.
This article is copyrighted by Guardian News & Media Ltd
Translated by Green Brick Press
One sentence introduction: millennium sweet potato powder, when wool socks