Flesh + Blood (1985)
Country: US
Technical: DeLuxe/Technovision 126m
Director: Paul Verhoeven
Cast: Rutger Hauer, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tom Burlinson, Jack Thompson, Ronald Lacey
Synopsis:
In an unspecified country (though locations suggest Spain) of the early sixteenth century, mercenaries are betrayed by their overlord, turn heretical brigands and are hunted down in a plague-infested castle.
Review:
Sounding for everything like one of those Sixties international co-productions, this extraordinary exercise in bad taste (recalling The Last Valley and The Devils) also misses the opportunity of saying anything much about an interesting period of history. The screenplay starts by pointing up the clash between old-style religious fanaticism, backward medical practices, etc. and a renaissance spirit of scientific enquiry, only to reconcile these opposing forces through, of all things, the belief in the mandrake root as an inspirer of mutual and everlasting love (scarcely borne out by the behaviour of the pair in question). This was the director's inauspicious debut in American cinema and a warning, in its preservation of all principal characters, supposedly to fight another day, of more cynicism to come.
Country: US
Technical: DeLuxe/Technovision 126m
Director: Paul Verhoeven
Cast: Rutger Hauer, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tom Burlinson, Jack Thompson, Ronald Lacey
Synopsis:
In an unspecified country (though locations suggest Spain) of the early sixteenth century, mercenaries are betrayed by their overlord, turn heretical brigands and are hunted down in a plague-infested castle.
Review:
Sounding for everything like one of those Sixties international co-productions, this extraordinary exercise in bad taste (recalling The Last Valley and The Devils) also misses the opportunity of saying anything much about an interesting period of history. The screenplay starts by pointing up the clash between old-style religious fanaticism, backward medical practices, etc. and a renaissance spirit of scientific enquiry, only to reconcile these opposing forces through, of all things, the belief in the mandrake root as an inspirer of mutual and everlasting love (scarcely borne out by the behaviour of the pair in question). This was the director's inauspicious debut in American cinema and a warning, in its preservation of all principal characters, supposedly to fight another day, of more cynicism to come.
Country: US
Technical: DeLuxe/Technovision 126m
Director: Paul Verhoeven
Cast: Rutger Hauer, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tom Burlinson, Jack Thompson, Ronald Lacey
Synopsis:
In an unspecified country (though locations suggest Spain) of the early sixteenth century, mercenaries are betrayed by their overlord, turn heretical brigands and are hunted down in a plague-infested castle.
Review:
Sounding for everything like one of those Sixties international co-productions, this extraordinary exercise in bad taste (recalling The Last Valley and The Devils) also misses the opportunity of saying anything much about an interesting period of history. The screenplay starts by pointing up the clash between old-style religious fanaticism, backward medical practices, etc. and a renaissance spirit of scientific enquiry, only to reconcile these opposing forces through, of all things, the belief in the mandrake root as an inspirer of mutual and everlasting love (scarcely borne out by the behaviour of the pair in question). This was the director's inauspicious debut in American cinema and a warning, in its preservation of all principal characters, supposedly to fight another day, of more cynicism to come.