How do you solve a problem like Benedetta?
If you removed from “Benedetta” all the gratuitous sex and violence — all the snake attacks and nightmare sequences, all the bubonic plague scenes and primitive sex toy interludes — you’d have a very short movie. “Benedetta” is a gloriously excessive entry from the cinema’s master of excess, Paul Verhoeven, and it’s an enjoyable, provocative experience.
Verhoeven is best known in the United States for a run of four movies in eight years — “Robocop” (1987), “Total Recall” (1990), “Basic Instinct” (1992) and “Showgirls” (1995) — that established him as a purveyor of high-budget schlock. What was little appreciated at the time was his perverse sense of humor. When we laughed at “Showgirls,” we didn’t realize that Verhoeven was laughing too.
The director’s personality has come better into focus over the past 15 years, during which he has worked exclusively in Europe. Whether making a movie about the anti-nazi resistance in the Netherlands (“Black Book”), the sexual mores of the bourgeoisie (“Tricked”) or a woman damaged by childhood trauma (“Elle”), Verhoeven’s recent work is witty, thoughtful and seriously, joyfully twisted.
“Benedetta” continues Verhoeven’s strong run with as good a movie as he’s ever made. Based on Judith C. Brown’s book “Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy,” it tells the fact-based story of Benedetta Carlini, who joins a convent as a little girl and discovers her sexuality in her late 20s.
Filmed in French and with French actors, “Benedetta” stars Virginie Efira, who has emerged as a major go-for-broke powerhouse in the past few years. She has a great look for the role of Benedetta, both wholesome and hard, as fresh as a shepherdess and yet with an intensity that she can use to frightening effect. We can easily believe her as a visionary or a fraud or some
combination of the two — as a fraud who comes to believe her own lies.
After suffering a series of nightmare hallucinations — either real or performed — Benedetta is given a novice, Bartolomea (Daphne Patakia), to look after her during the night. But Bartolomea turns out to be an enthusiastic sensualist who awakens dormant powerful urges in Benedetta. And so the story is launched.
But that’s only half the story here. What distinguishes “Benedetta” most of all is the sense that Verhoeven has no limits, that at any moment he’ll bring in anything — a nun’s naive romantic fantasy involving Jesus, a grotesque bit of violence, a scene of horrific disease or something completely bizarre, as when a Vatican nuncio’s mistress walks
into the room very pregnant and demonstrates that she’s lactating.
Verhoeven’s vision of smalltown 17th century life mixes true believers with worldly secular people, such as Lambert Wilson’s nuncio and Charlotte Rampling’s mother superior, for whom the church is a business. Despite the film’s eccentricities — or perhaps because of them — one comes away with a feeling for the era’s mindset.
Into this mix, there’s the elusive Benedetta, who could be a believer or a cynic or simply
possessed by a demon. It’s curious how Efira and Verhoeven are able to leave all options on the table while holding nothing back. However they do it, we come away seeing Benedetta’s story as bigger than her — that
she was somehow both the dangerous product and the inevitable expression of her time and place.
Running time: 2 hours 11 minutes Rating: Not rated