Benedetta

Zwei Nonnen vergnügen sich mit einem Holzdildo, den sie aus einer Heiligenfigur geschnitzt haben – Paul Verhoeven hat die Lust an der Provokation offensichtlich nicht verloren. Nach wahren Ereignissen greift er in seinem aktuellen Film die Geschichte der italienischen Nonne Benedetta auf, die in der Toskana im 17. Jahrhundert in einem Kloster landet. Befeuert vom Hang zur trashigen Übertreibung und mit unverhohlen männlichem Blick kreist das unterhaltsame Klosterdrama dabei um wilde Visionen und Wunder, die keine sind, um Intrigen, Geheimnisse und die Pest – vor allem aber um die entflammende Liebe zwischen Benedetta und der Novizin Bartolomea. (Sascha Rettig)

After several decades, it’s amusing to watch the pattern of a Paul Verhoeven film entering the world: the notoriety can obscure his mastery. The director’s latest movie is erotically charged, yes, but it’s primarily a gripping thriller of political intrigue and a questioning of faith that lays bare the use and abuse of power in organized religion.
Set in a 17th-century convent, the story of the ambitious young Benedetta begins as this starry-eyed novice nun is bankrolled by her wealthy father and then rockets to prominence in her new home. Verhoeven administers a double shock: his protagonist wins favor by claiming to have stigmata, and she passes her free time in carnal enjoyment with her brusque lover, ignoring vows of chastity and propriety. Arriving in a post-Devils world, the filmmaker is not trying something so simple as blasphemy, and instead crafts a stone-andcloth immersion in the era and its strictures. His merciless film shows the often-mercenary mindsets of Benedetta, her mother superior, and church leaders. When plague strikes the countryside, the outbreak turns out to be just another way for its characters to scheme against each other in the face of death. Faith may be sacred, but human relations, Verhoeven suggests, bring it inescapably down to earth. (Nic Rapold)

Paul Verhoeven: EÉN HAGEDIS TEVEEL (1960), WAS SEHE ICH (1971), TÜRKISCHE FRÜCHTE (1973), DER SOLDAT VON ORANIEN (1977), DER VIERTE MANN (1983), FLESH AND BLOOD (1985), ROBOCOP (1987), TOTAL RECALL (1990), BASIC INSTINCT (1992), SHOWGIRLS (1995), STARSHIP TROOPERS (1997), HOLLOW MAN (2000), BLACK BOOK (2006), TRICKED (2012), ELLE (2016)