Sins of the flesh

Benedetta
Directed by Paul Verhoeven
Certificate 18, 131 minutes
Released 15 April

The Dutch director Paul Verhoeven revels in controversy. In Hollywood, he pushed the boundaries of taste with the violent Robocop in 1987 and the sexually explicit Basic Instinct in 1992. Now working in Europe, he won critical acclaim for the provocative thriller Elle in 2016. His latest work, Benedetta, is again sexually explicit, but also tackles religion within a historical context. It clearly has plenty of potential to offend.

Benedetta is based on the story of the 17th-century Italian nun Benedetta Carlini who had visions and exhibited stigmata. She became an abbess and was investigated and discredited by Catholic officials. There were suggestions that Benedetta’s visionary traffic was with the Devil rather than God, while various nuns’ testimonies claimed her stigmata to be faked. Her room mate Bartolomea confessed to regular sexual activity with Benedetta. Benedetta was demoted.

Verhoeven eschews historical accuracy for the spiritual, the spectacular and the carnal. His spiritual frequently involves the scatological, as when, in an act of divine providence, a bird poops on a bandit threatening young Benedetta and her parents, or when two nuns engage in profound conversation sitting on latrine seats. His spectacular involves the history of western art: when, in a vision, several upright snakes surround Benedetta (Virginie Effira), it’s as if you’re watching an animated version of a painting by a 17th century master. His carnal involves Benedetta and Bartolomea (Daphne Patakia) in the privacy of their cell, and you have been warned!

The cast also features Charlotte Rampling as Benedetta’s Mother Superior, allotted far more screen time, and therefore becoming far more central to the drama, than for her not dissimilar role in Dune.

Verhoeven once wrote a book about Jesus with all the miracles and supernatural elements cut away to explore a troubling, prophetic and political figure. The director has a strong grasp of material carnality and human relationships. His materialist worldview sees God as not only a religious figurehead exerting major influence on Western art and culture, but also as unknowable, if not non-existent. Many religious cinemagoers might be interested in engaging with Verhoeven but be put off by the graphic sexual content. Benedetta has the potential to provoke, fascinate or offend.

Jeremy Clarke is a film critic. His website is jeremycprocessing.com

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Patterns of disadvantage

Climate Change Is Racist: Race, privilege and the struggle for climate justice
Jeremy Williams
Icon Books
£8.99
ISBN: 978-1-78578-775-1

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It doesn’t take very long for the reader to overcome reservations about the deliberately provocative title: by the end of the preface one is engaged, and by the end of the introduction convinced that Williams is writing about something important. He distinguishes between three types of racism: racial prejudice (individual acts and attitudes), institutional racism (an organisational culture that results in unintended negative consequences), and structural or systemic racism (‘patterns of disadvantage’ that are embedded in the global economy). It is the latter that is the subject of this book, both in its historical origins and contemporary manifestations. Structural racism is shown to have run in parallel with the degradation of nature and to share the same root causes…

Peter Skerratt is a member of St Andrew’s United Reformed Church, Ealing, London

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Getting inside Myanmar

Whispers of Hope: A family memoir of Myanmar
Chris Mabey
Penguin Books
£20.95
978-9-814-95425-9

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How many Penguin books have you read which include the author’s testimony about coming to faith in Jesus Christ? In part, this is the spiritual autobiography of an evangelical management consultant involved in church leadership and community development.

Whispers of Hope is also about Myanmar, or, as the author first encountered it, Burma. This story is told through the history of the family to which he belongs through marriage. His wife’s parents came to the UK, fleeing the political turbulence of the early years of Burmese independence. However, we are asked to note that in the 1940s some Burmese regarded the Japanese empire as no worse a prospect than their experience of the British one…

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This article was published in the April 2022 edition of Reform

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