La Chair et le Sang

The Middle Ages in the Verhoeven way, in short. Extremely cruel film, a lot of blood, sex and violence. However, the film does not go into trash because the director made an effort to make everything look extremely realistic and convincing. He even did a good research before filming how everything was then at that age. Good cast, I was personally surprised with (then young) Jennifer Jason Leigh. I understand that this is not a film for everyone and for every mood, including me. It may have been fun for someone, but it wasn't for me.

After the success of Conan the Barbarian, the 80's saw a glut of Midevil adventure movies, but none of them stand on the same ground as Flesh and Blood. No movie, at the time, was more unabashedly filled with gore and nakedness. It doesnt try to be glossy or romantic in any way but isnt heavyhanded or serious either.

As he was so often in nearly every role he played, Rutger Hauer is perfect and at ease, alive, and eating up every frame of film he is in. A sad reminder of the days when he had so much promise, before he went downhill into Direct-To-Video Land.

Jennifer Jason Leigh is caught in one of her rare stilted preformances. Instead of going above the b-movie tone, she sort of wallows in it, but everyone else in the movie is also over the top and caricatured, so the film does not suffer and is invigorated instead of being obtuse.

The perfect blend of violence and sex, good and bad acting, b-movie tone with a studio budget. One enjoyable movie.

I happened to catch this 1985 film on cable. I'd never heard of it before, and found only a few reviews for it on the movie review query engine. That's a shame, because this is one of the most original of the swords/knights/princesses genre movies I've seen. Technically, it's not a medieval tale, as it's set in the 16th Century, but with the exception of some innovative period weapons, including an exploding barrel with a long fuse that sometimes goes off at the wrong time, the atmosphere is very much out of the dark ages. While the costumes, scenery and plot (a gang of betrayed soldiers seek revenge and kidnap a princess) are fairly typical, the subtlety of the characters and the moral ambiguity of the story are very atypical of Hollywood films. For one thing, it's very difficult to say who the bad guys are. The gang of kidnappers, led by Rutger Hauer, is churlish and brutal. Yet, they were badly mistreated at the beginning of the movie, so it's hard not to retain some sympathy for them. The princess, played by Jennifer Jason Leigh, is a similarly ambiguous character. She's loved by both Hauer and his enemy (played by Tom Burlinson) and she may or may not love one or both of them in return. Overall, what makes Flesh and Blood original is the fact that it doesn't romanticize the past. Life is portrayed as extremely harsh; people rape, kill and torture with impunity, and the threat of the plague lurks everywhere. It's a good antidote for anyone who, after watching one of the King Arthur movies, wishes they were a sword-wielding knight.

This movie was definitely not for the kids. Let me get that out of the way. Very violent, very dark, very adult. I expected as much, but rarely do movies go so uninhibited when attempting subject matter such as this one.

The movie itself is deep on a couple levels, shallow on others. This movie concentrates almost entirely on personal interplay between the 3 main characters, Martin, Agnes, and Steven. The interaction is quite good and one can almost visualize the plots within plots stirring in their brains.

However, the plot suffers for it. It's really a basic movie, more of a period piece than a complete story. There are large gaps and leaps in logic, as well as believability. But this movie was never about plot. The plot was a backdrop for the interactions of the characters.

As a backdrop, it does very well indeed. Costumes are all pretty close to the mark for period landsknechts (German mercenaries), though not as gaudy as one sees in the history books. Probably because they were hardly ever clean or whole in real life (mercenaries would replace torn or worn out clothing with pieces taken from fallen opponents). The score is well done and unobtrusive, and the locations suitably bleak. Overall, the feel of the movie is authentic, plague-ridden medieval complete with life-is-cheap attitudes. I would caution, however, that this movie is not a whole picture of medieval times, but rather a look into the lives of a violent subculture (though some general attitudes are pointed out, as one reviewer posted, a conversation takes place near a hanged man with barely a thought).

Overall, how you rate this movie depends on what you get out of it. Is it a good "ride"? I'd say yes. The plot was thin, but hey, it was in the Mummy as well... and we don't go see those kind of movies for plot. The movie is immersive and very different than typical Hollywood faire. One of the better medieval movies I've seen.

But if rape, brutality, superstition and disease are not your cup of tea, there may be too much here for you to glimpse the interactions underneath, and you'll probably dislike it.

In this tale told by Paul Verhoeven and written by Gerard Soeteman, we follow a group of medieval mercenaries who get double-crossed by their commanding officer, which leads them down a path of revenge, crime and bloodshed. Essentially it's a Robin Hood story, or an underdog tale, but with no punches pulled and with a taste for the gore and splatter. Verhoeven is most known for his dark scifi action films, like Total Recall and RoboCop, but this film is very much his creation when it comes to the style.

And I have to admit that I like it a lot. Verhoeven's signature style is all over the screen with this one and it just might be one of the most brutal medieval adventure films I've ever seen. No one comes out of this film unscathed and it's such a jaded film that it's even hard to pick sides. The mercenaries are justified in their lust for revenge, but they also end up kidnapping the bride of the son of their betrayer and abusing her in very dark ways. On the other hand the bride is not a saint either, and very much not a damsel in distress, being willing to do whatever it takes to survive. Whereas the son of the betrayer, the groom as it may be, is perhaps the most virtuous of the whole cast, but even he has his dark tendencies.

And it's just a great adventure film in its own right. The setting is great, the characters are all shades of awesome, the action scenes are just the right amount of over the top and the whole film has this unmistakable style of the 80s. Blood and gore, smoke and shadows.

Very much worth a watch for all fans of dark and one of my favourite Verhoeven movies.