2023 French Film Series:
Benedetta
(Paul Verhoeven, 2021, 131 min, France, French with English subtitles, DCP)
— Introduced by Hélie Vigor (Romance Studies). Q&A to follow screening.
Based on true events, Benedetta unearths the story of Benedetta Carlini, a 17th-century nun in Tuscany who believed she saw visions of Christ and engaged in a sexual relationship with a fellow sister at her abbey. Directed by Paul Verhoeven (Robocop, Basic Instinct), this delirious, erotic, and violent melodrama is told with a boundless spirit for scandal, and unabashedly courts blasphemy as it unfolds its tale of religious hypocrisy. Wildly entertaining, Benedetta maintains both a feverish pitch and a fascinating ambiguity in its depiction of the miraculous and the mundane, the sacred and the profane.
“True disciples will appreciate the outlandish craft and courage of Verhoeven’s best film in years: a feminist allegory about a woman establishing power in a patriarchal system — through faith, love and dildos. A funny, filthy, iconoclastic riot.” – Empire
Screen/Society screenings are free and open to the public. (COVID-19 Info)
