Flesh+Blood (1985)

In medieval Europe, a young girl from a noble family is obsessed with her captors-commoners.

Director:

Paul Verhoeven

Writers:

Gerard Soeteman (screenplay), Gerard Soeteman (story)

Stars:

Rutger Hauer, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tom Burlinson

2 wins & 1 nomination.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Rutger Hauer	...	Martin
Jennifer Jason Leigh	...	Agnes
Tom Burlinson	...	Steven
Jack Thompson	...	Hawkwood
Fernando Hilbeck	...	Arnolfini (as Fernando Hillbeck)
Susan Tyrrell	...	Celine
Ronald Lacey	...	Cardinal
Brion James	...	Karsthans
John Dennis Johnston	...	Summer
Simón Andreu	...	Miel
Bruno Kirby	...	Orbec
Kitty Courbois	...	Anna
Marina Saura	...	Polly
Hans Veerman	...	Father George
Jake Wood	...	Little John

Storyline

A band of medieval mercenaries take revenge on a noble lord who decides not to pay them by kidnapping the betrothed of the noble's son. As the plague and warfare cut a swathe of destruction throughout the land, the mercenaries hole up in a castle and await their fate.

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Plot Keywords:

nudity | pregnant prostitute | prostitute | female removes her clothes | rape victim | 

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Taglines:

Betrayed by power. Corrupted by love. Bound by honor.

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Genres:

Adventure | Drama

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Certificate:

R

Details

Official Sites:

MGM

Country:

Netherlands Spain USA

Language:

English Latin

Release Date:

30 August 1985 (USA)

Also Known As:

Flesh & Blood

Filming Locations:

Spain

Box Office

Budget:

$6,500,000 (estimated)

Gross USA:

$100,000, 1 September 1985

Company Credits

Production Co:

Riverside Pictures, Impala

Technical Specs

Runtime:

126 min 128 min (uncut)

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.39 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Nancy Cartwright, better known as the voice of Bart Simpson" stars in this movie with Jennifer Jason Leigh. She was also in the Twilight Zone: The Movie, the film in reality where tragically Jennifer Jason Leigh's father Vic Morrow was killed.

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Goofs

After drinking from the contaminated well, several characters immediately fall ill from plague. Plague by any vector has an incubation period of at least one day.

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Quotes

Steven: What are you doing in this filthy place? Are you looking for something?
Agnes: I read a book in the convent library, about love and black magic. There was a passage I found fascinating.
Steven: What was it about?
Agnes: A magic root. Mandrake. It grows in a place like this. If a man and a woman eat of it, they will love each other forever.
Steven: Did it also say why you have to dig in this particular spot?
Agnes: The nuns inked out that passage very carefully.
Steven: When a man is hanged, he comes and his semen spills to the ground. ...
[...]

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Alternate Versions

UK cinema and video versions were cut by 38 secs by the BBFC with edits to the rape of Agnes. The cuts were waived for the 2005 MGM DVD.

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Connections

Referenced in Verhoeven Versus Verhoeven (2016)

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Soundtracks

Throughout the Years
Composed by Charles Williams

User Reviews

Good film, if you don't expect the wrong things from it.

This film is definitely off the beaten track. I enjoyed it a lot, and thought that there were some truly stand-out performances here, notably Rutger Hauer and Jennifer Jason Leigh. Some other actors and actresses that I didn't recognize were excellent. The tone is relentlessly bleak as befits the times. A couple of scenes put the times in perspective. One is where Agnes and Stephen talk and flirt beneath the hanging corpses without giving much thought to what we would consider today the horrid nature of such a sight. Another is towards the end, when one of the women has been captured (Polly, I think) and is being raped, and the lord (Stephen's father) simply walks past, barely noticing. I don't know if they are simply there for shock value, or if Verhoeven is making the point that one cannot judge mores, morals, and customs of past ages by the standards of today. (Something done quite a bit these days, most notably about slavery.)

Some of the criticisms in other comments are valid. True, none of the characters are very likeable. I was sort of hoping that they would all be dead by the end of the movie. But, again, I'm judging them by 21st century standards. Also, about the plague. I'm sure Verhoeven knows that plague is spread by rat fleas, so all of the machinations about the plague has to be from people's points of view in 1501-2.

This film is worth viewing, but don't expect gallantry, chivalry, or even decency. And no, it's really not a "date movie" Grade: A