Dir. Paul Verhoeven
2022 | 131 mins | France, Belgium, Netherlands
French with English subtitles
Virginie Efira, Charlotte Rampling, Daphne Patakia

SHOWING TIMES:

• Fri 22 April: 5.15pm
• Sat 23 April: 7.40pm
• Sun 24 April: 5.45pm
• Mon 25 April: 7.30pm
• Tue 26 April: 5pm
• Thu 28 April: 7.30pm

Seasoned provocateur Paul Verhoeven (Basic Instinct, Showgirls, Black Book, Elle) returns with this gleefully transgressive drama, inspired by a nun in Renaissance Italy whose lesbian relationship and erotic visions of Jesus scandalised her church.

Tuscany, 17th century: As the threat of the Black Death hangs over Europe, a devout young novice, Benedetta Carlini (Elena Plonka), enters a convent. 18 years later, Benedetta (now played by Virginie Efira) begins having blasphemous visions of a naked Jesus that shock her fellow sisters – save perhaps cynical, calculating Abbess Felicita (Charlotte Rampling) – but seize the imagination of the plague-terrified locals. Meanwhile, Benedetta meets with another test of faith; this time the ungovernable desires brought forth by a fiery novitiate (Daphne Patakia) fleeing her violent father.

Drawn from Judith C. Brown’s 1986 book Immodest Acts, a pioneering 1986 study of Benedetta’s gay sexuality and mythology, Benedetta is a lurid, simmering and explicit romp that depicts religious hypocrisy, moral ambiguity and the possibilities of female emancipation in a male-dominated world while questioning – albeit lightly, and through Verhoeven’s unabashed male gaze – whether bodily pleasures really are bad for the soul.

★★★★★ – “A searing exploration of faith… Up there with the best of Verhoeven’s long career” BBC CULTURE

VENUE: EXETER PHOENIX, STUDIO 74

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