Flesh + Blood

Flesh + Blood (1985). Ah, European sword epics dedicated to history anywhere between the 9th-16th century. Gotta love Paul Verhoeven’s specificity. Despite a storyline involving a dislocated king who betrays his medieval mercenaries, those same outcast mercenaries then preying on religious superstition in order to transplant themselves into glory and riches, the betrothed maiden to the prince who must manipulate the mercenary’s leader in order to survive, and the desperate son of the king working to find his betrothed, all of these elements fall away into superficiality, largely because Verhoeven alternates tonal arrangement far too often to ever craft a film that is anything more than intermittently entertaining.

Despite having a game Martin (Rutger Hauer) as the leader of the mercenary clan evolving and trying out the rule of monarchy, and thus subverting it, which is apparently Verhoeven’s critique, what ultimately makes this film worth a viewing is the treatment of Agnes (Jennifer Jason Leigh). Though she has promised herself to the prince via a mutually and faux-beautifully romantic eating of mandrake, after being unknowingly kidnapped and discovered she must win Martin over as his personal mistress rather than getting passed around and raped by all the mercenaries. While this opens up interesting issues of identity as she works to keep both Martin and the prince eternally devoted to her, securing herself safeguard no matter which victor wins, the film (and thus Verhoeven) problematically cloud this issue by conspiring to utilize a shrilling soundtrack that swells tenderly any time Agnes and Martin bed together, making Agnes out to be singularly focused on survival with Martin rather than focusing on her true duplicitous nature.

This type of indeterminacy is further undermined by the prince himself, who early on in the film regards his father as villainous and a traitor to those who won him back his castle, yet the son seemingly sheds this contempt for his father the very second he loses his betrothed, thereby repeating his father’s same contemptuous mannerisms in order to secure his betrothed. The film never dwells on this fact, nor does it show Agnes’ recognition or ramifications of this newfound character reversal, but instead cheerfully marches on, never really deciding whether or not the prince or Martin is a more virtuous character. While this allows Verhoeven an opportunity to claim that Agnes is the only character with true virtue, it’s simple-minded and lessens the complexity of character motivation.

That said, this film deserves props for a few rousing action scenes and a truly glorious moment where a dog infected with the plague is cut up and catapulted over a castle wall. That alone raises the grade a half point. Even so, though, this is one of Verhoeven’s weaker efforts and it is deservedly marginalized, despite ample Jennifer Jason Leigh nudity. After all, what film isn’t Leigh naked in any more?

Flesh + Blood: 5.5/10