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If sex is power, is not power, by association, a sin?
BENEDETTA is Verhoeven’s greatest paradox — unabashedly candid yet cloaked in an ambiguity that remains long after its threads have unraveled. An opening flashback offers a glimpse of the fertile Tuscan hills, sprawling open and onward in an endless swarth of green. It’s beautifully rustic, a stark contrast to the sand-toned walls of Pescia, where a convent awaits our young and eponymous protagonist. Benedetta claims to have a gifted connection with Jesus, and we see her call upon it when her family’s caravan is stopped by an onslaught of thieves. A bird then proceeds to shit fortuitously in one of their eyes — a coincidence or the will of God? Regardless, it’s enough of a scare to drive them off and away, allowing the family to continue undeterred en route to the convent.
Verhoeven is a master of his medium, and particularly gifted when it comes to communicating the unspoken through objects or places that are banal, lifeless, or emotionally uninspired. In coming to Pescia, the young Benedetta is now walled in two times over — by the city itself and the steep and austere monastery walls that will come to dictate her life. She’s denied both her individuality and femininity to become a sexless servant of God, yet both will survive and increasingly manifest in her psychic visions. Her desires sublimate in these hallucinations, an open playground for her to explore and express. It’s no coincidence that each and every one features a lush greenscape, unbounded and free, despite the vast differences that they exhibit. Freedom — more specifically, sexual emancipation — gnaws at her enervating self-conscious. Even the dialogue is complicit in Verhoeven’s cohesive vision, littered with cheeky double entendres, enigmatic and enticing in delivery: “God speaks to us in many tongues.” Religion is a funny thing, one that encourages interpretation but concurrently condemns subjectivity. The entire structure of the church is governed by psychological manipulation as a means to uphold and buttress didactic control. Their word is fact, and anybody who argues otherwise is a threat to be punished and shamed. Everything about this contradicts the heart of faith itself — how can it be a sin to comport differently even though one still places God before anyone and anything else?
When Benedetta first arrives, she is complacent, careful, and stoic, an extension of the church. She’s frightened and intrigued by her burgeoning sexual desires: they offer autonomy and freewill, the forbidden fruit worth every consequence. Her visions increase in occurrence and are sexually charged, often accompanied by subconscious outburst and pain that both frighten and intrigue her superiors. It is here that Benedetta begins to gently court her own freedom and power, believing her visions are indicative of greater religious stature. In accruing more importance within the church, Benedetta discovers a newfound flexibility available only to the elite.
It’s inevitable, then, that these repressed urges would materialize in the arrival of Bartolomea, a desperate stray seeking refuge from an abusive father. Benedetta is mesmerized, and negotiates for her to stay. Bartolomea, gracious and unbound by the rigidity of Catholic discipline, develops a lusty affection for her savior. Her advances are subtle but intentional — a touch here, a touch there, a teasing glimpse. Virginie Efira is brilliant in capturing Benedetta’s intimate fragility, feigning indifference but betraying her efforts unconsciously by way of tensed muscles and strained, wistful gazes. When she finally capitulates, she finds herself emboldened from this newfound desire and self-expression, which in turn fuels her lust for God, an obvious conflict of interests. In doing so, she’s also reclaiming her own power as a individual, drunk off hallucinogenic self-importance.
The seed of vanity blossoms when Benedetta, now bearing the stigmata, succeeds Felicita (Charlotte Rampling, who gives the most palpably visceral performance in the entire film) to become the church Mother. Her newfound repute grants her a near impenetrable immunity. Her agency grows to become exploitative, first evident in her fraying relationship with Bartolomea. Benedetta is often aloof and self-involved, reserving little affection for Bartolomea outside of their rendezvous. When accused of this, Benedetta clings to the defense of devotion, citing that her duty is to live and act for the people in the name of Jesus. Having discovered a glass shard, Bartolomea begins to doubt the legitimacy of her lover’s claims, driving them apart. Her newfound doubt is understandable — has Benedetta exploited chance in order to strengthen her influence? Is she really crusading for the people, or has her vanity sabotaged that? With freedom came a greater hunger and a greater hypocrisy; Benedetta is no better or worse than the others. She is just as complicit, whether she’s consciously aware of it or not.
A distraught Felicita, desperate, looks for palpable evidence to dethrone Benedetta and is successful when she discovers her having sex with Bartolomea through an old peephole. She travels to Florence to accuse Benedetta of blasphemy, forcing her disciples to decide between her and the church. Alas, it is always a power struggle, this time with a tint of revenge — but just as Benedetta’s visions unearthed subconscious yearnings, Felicita’s rage also taps its resources from long repressed envy. Again, ambiguity prevails in the context of envy itself: is it borne of power, of sex, or both?
Can we fault Benedetta for her hunger in good conscience, knowing that such yearning stemmed because the church robbed her of her sexual identity, something she was entitled to? Had she never been denied such pleasures, would she still harbor that same voracity for power and control?
As the Nuncio arrives in Pescia, the convent is torn asunder over Benedetta’s comportment. Bartolomea is dragged into the controversy and tortured, and vilifies her ex-lover. Benedetta is found guilty, and awaits an execution, despite her desperate attempts to warn the village of a spreading plague. Felicita has already fallen ill; Benedetta visits and confers with her, alerting her to the fact that it was the Nuncio who brought the plague to Pescia, and a doing of God to punish the convent for ostracizing Benedetta.
Everybody is lost, confused, upset, unsure of the faith that they have devoted their life to upholding. Who is right and wrong? Is God really the chief arbitrator, or is it just a ruse to cover for a bureaucracy chock full of corruption and hypocrisy? The townsfolk, not privy to the internal collapse, protest Benedetta’s execution and storm the center in a mob, killing the Nuncio instead when Benedetta reveals his betrayal. Felicita, sick and aimless, listlessly walks into the fire to spare the spreading of the plague. Benedetta escapes, along with a remorseful Bartolomea, and together they flee into the Tuscan countryside for one last tumble in the hay, before Benedetta resolves to return. Bartolomea is hurt and vexed by this — Benedetta, still turgid in her self importance, says she knows she will be punished but heads back anyway. An afterword states that Pescia was indeed spared of the Plague, and we wonder again if fortuity once again stepped in on Benedetta’s behalf.
It’s a ponderous film, deeply beautiful and unflinching in its critique of religious absolutism and the absolution of freewill at the expense of an unsubstantiated ideology, and I particularly love how Verhoeven uses queer sex to illuminate the cracks and gimmicks in the machine. It’s irrelevant whether or not Benedetta was a true visionary, just as religion is irrelevant save for its ability to necessitate and preserve order and power. What does stand out is how Verhoeven explores the film primarily through the lens of her gender and sexuality, and how hypocrisy is often an infinite cycle. In his typical oeuvre, spurts of humor help to lighten the often heavy atmosphere, reminding us once again of how commendable and valuable Verhoeven’s honesty is in a world governed by farcical abstracts and concepts.
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