It's Judith C Brown we have to thank for her research into a convent in 17th century Pescia in Tuscany where things are happening to a young nun called Benedetta. Brown's book Immodest Acts etc has been adapted and filmed by Paul Verhoeven, a director at the height of his powers. Everything about this film looks gorgeous. The Guardian called it "tame and tasteful" and "mostly good clean wholesome fun". That is so not true. This has UK 18 Certificate and I guess that it only just passed the censor. I don't mind the subtitles (the movie is in French) as my hearing is not perfect these days, although the cinema sound is normally quite loud enough for me. Anne Dudley's soundtrack was called "deafeningly loud, but I found it perfect. Belgium actress Virginie Efira is great in the title role. I remember her playing Isabelle Huppert's neighbour in Elle, another fine Verhoeven film. And Charlotte Rampling is at her best as the Mother Superior. Unforgettable.
Another well respected writer and director is Robert Eggers. I missed his The Lighthouse and The Witch, so will look out for these. A Viking drama rather than an epic, and so much better for that. Much of the movie is located at a village in Iceland. The story is pretty straightforward, almost predictable, but there is plenty of detail on the screen to enjoy. The "hero" is Amleth, well played by Alexander Skarsgard. There are similarities to Hamlet, even his name. His uncle kills his father and marries his wife. A seething Nicole Kidman. But Eggers has ignored Shakespeare and gone back to the source of the medieval legend. Here is another director who likes to work with the same actors, this time Anya Taylor-Joy and Willem Dafoe. And late on I spotted the world's worst actor Ralph Ineson, famous in this house as a highly unlikely police commander in Trigger Point, among other TV dramas.
This is not a movie for the faint hearted, three on the spin. I thought it was ponderously gripping, harrowing, uncompromising and intense. Not sure what made me go to see it, except again it is French and won at Cannes. The most incredible thing about the film is that the camera stays up close and personal to Annie (brilliantly played by Anamaria Vartolomei) all the way through. It's as if we are actually experiencing those weeks of her life in early pregnancy. We are in 1963 and abortion is illegal in France and anyone connected with such an act is destined for prison.
But Annie is desperate, she is a highly talented student who wants a life. But on the other hand she stupidly did not take care. Not sure about that combination. Throughout the film she is so serious, almost haunted, she only ever smiles once, at home watching a silly comedy on TV. It's what is left out of the movie that is so clever. we never see the act where she gets pregnant, there is very little said at home with her dominating mother. Director Audrey Diwan has made something extraordinary from Annie Ernaut's autobiographical novel. No, not for the faint hearted. I would have switched off if watching on TV. I just couldn't in the cinema.
SPOILER ALERT. One thing that resonated after seeing the film was a comparison between the three doctors. The first was just unhelpful and warned Annie that although a miscarriage is treated with leniency, there is the certainty of prison for her any anyone involved if she went through with an abortion. The second giving Annie some medication to strengthen the mucus (and prevent an abortion) when she thought he had agreed to give her something to terminate the pregnancy. The third doctor , much later, sympathetically recording it as a miscarriage rather than the alternative abortion that would have destroyed her life.
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