Beatrice Cenci

Plot synopsis:
Italy, 1599. The entire Cenci family awaits their fates on the morning of their execution for murder. Frequent flashbacks show reason why.Four years earlier: Francesco Cenci (George Wilson) is a rich landowner and nobleman, but is hated by everyone, including his entire family. He's a vicious, conniving, cynical tyrant of the household and a domestic abuser to his wife and children. He also has made numerous enemies within the close-knit halls of the Catholic Church and the state. Francesco's beautiful teenage daughter, Beatrice (Adrienne Laurussa), confides in her mother that intends to take the cloth and enter a convent, as much to escape from her father as for spiritual reasons. When Francesco hears about this, he is enraged and reacts by imprisoning Beatrice in the bowels of the Cenci castle, observing that there is little difference between dungeon and cloister.Flashing forward back to the present, it is announced that the Cenci patriarch has been killed in a fall from the battlements, an accident which looks suspiciously like murder. Suspicion closes around Beatrice's lover Olimpio (Tomas Milian), who is taken into custody and brutally tortured for information about the slaying.Flashing back in time, Beatrice is released from her father's dungeon after nearly a year in solitary confinment by Francesco to celebrate news that her two older brothers where killed in war. Beatrice defies the atmosphere the revelry demanded by her abrasive and callous father and attends the party wearing a black funeral dress. A little later, Francisco confronts Beatrice in an upstairs bedroom, and the specter of incest emerges. Beatrice's father drunkenly rips off his daughters black dress and stands swaying over her, dripping sweat into Beatrices exposed midriff. It is finally revealed the motive for Francesco's death: he was raping his grieving daughter.Beatrice changes drastically after this horror. She coerces her besotted servant, Olimpio, with sexual favors, and embroils him in her desire for revenge. Olimpio is told to seek the assistantce of the local bandit, Catalano (Pedro Sanchez) to exact revenge on her father. Olimpio is not told for what reason he is planning the murder; it is enough for him that his lady lover requires it. When the time comes as Francesco Cenci sleeps, the bandit ducks out, revealing that he is a killer "in reputation only." Olimpio, with a knife raised to stab Francesco, also suddenly backs out saying that he cannot stomach the task of killing. In desperation, Beatrice snatches the knife from Olimpio, and does the deed herself, stabbing her father in the eye, while Olimpio restrains the waking victim before he expires.Beatrice is vengefully aglow, but Olimpio is stricken with guilt, and wipes his bloody hands on the bedstead. Beatrice calls in her stepmother to help her clean up the mess and gets her little brother (Antonio Casagrande) to help her carry the dead Francesco onto the ramparts of the castle to throw him off to make it look like an accident. Beatrice uses their silent compliance to ensure future denials.Flashing forward back to the present, the whole Cenci family is implicated in the murder either as participants or accessories and under Church law, they are condemned to death. The bandit Catalano is murdered by soldiers when he attempts to escape after he attempts to kill one soldier on horseback and in return, is lanced to death. Cardinal Lanciani (Raymond Pellegrin) attempts to wring a statement implicated Beatrice from Olimpio, who has been repeatedly tortured to extract his confession about the Cenci family's involvment. But Olimpio maintains Beatrice's innocence in the crime until he dies from his wounds. The planned execution begins causing great unrest among the people of Rome who feel that Beatrice was justified in killing her father who besmirched her honor. The Pope decides to absolve Beatrice Cenci of her sins but only after she is beheaded along with the rest of her family. He belives that an absolution will clear the air by making Beatrice a martyr. This horrendous duplicity exposed, the movie ends as Beatrice and the rest of her family are led out of their cells into the prison courtyard for their execution.

Tags: murder, flashback

Review:
Fulci's Best Non Horror Movie.
A terrificly executed period piece from the Godfather of Gore, Beatrice Cenci(1969) is a masterpiece of tragic beauty.
This movie is a contradiction to the accusation of Fulci as a misogynist from his later films.
Adrienne LaRussa does a nice job in conveying the almost gentle nature of the female protagonist.
George Wilson as the father does a good job in portraying someone truly evil.
Cries of death to the director were shouted in a theatre due to the film's anti-catholic nature.The Catholic church is presented in the film with absolute disdain.
In fact, they are seen as greedy and hypocritical.
Beatrice Cenci(1969), along with The Witchfinder General(1968) are probably the best films dealing with the late middle ages.
The direction is nearly perfect, and the story is well done.
The film revolves around a labyrinth of flashbacks in the style of Reservoir Dogs(1992).
The main source of influence seems to been The play version of The Cenci by Artoud, Antonin as well as the five act play by Percelly Shelly.There are two films that Beatrice Cenci(1969) compares with.
One film is Don't Torture A Duckling(1972) which also deals with Catholic repression.
Another film is The Devil's Honey(1986) which deals deals with a woman's urge to be an independant woman.
Beatrice Cenci(1969) is not only overlooked by Fulci supporters but by Fulci distractors as well.
This movie shows that Fulci was capable of more ambigious and personal films then the many ones that he direct in his career(Its too bad as he had the talent that would have made him one of the best directors of his generation in Italy)..
A simple soldier shouldn't be too suspicious..
Those expecting a typical horror movie will be disappointed, as the horror depicted here is the Catholic Church's use of torture in the Middle Ages, and their greed.
Fulci doesn't flinch from presenting the evil that was the church in that time.Those who do not like period pieces may find this film dull, but Fulci does a great job producing a work that is both beautiful and interesting.Adrienne Larussa was beautiful and did a very good job as the title character.
Her father, played by Georges Wilson, was an evil man who kept her locked up.
Wilson does a very good job portraying someone you really want to see die.You have to love a strong determined woman.
Even in the face of torture by the church, she remained strong.Definitely not a movie for faithful Catholics..
Flesh and blood.
I do not go much for Fulci's horror movies which remain very inferior,IMHO, to those of his Italian colleagues (Dario Argento and Mario Bava).But this one ,by keeping the horror sequences to the minimum (the tortures scenes do not last long fortunately),is eminently commendable.The cast includes two French actors :one of them ,Georges Wilson ,a very earnest stage thespian ,and the father of Lambert Wilson,is very unexpected here ,and his part of the violent perverse noble who rejoices cause two of his sons are dead so he won't have to feed them anymore and who imprisons his daughter in a dungeon is quite impressive .The other French actor is Raymond Pellegrin in a supporting role.Adrienne Larusso is incredibly beautiful as Beatrice Cenci and Thomas Milian gives a restrained effective performance.The plot is not easy to catch up with ,because the director blends present and past without the traditional codes .No transition most of the time.Besides ,there are many characters ,and many of them are underwritten (Beatrice's brother for instance)It's a film of blood and fury,the monsters are everywhere :Francesco Cenci is terrifying but so is the Holy Office whose goal is to appropriate the Cenci's fortune.Like this?try these....Flesh and blood (Paul Verhoeven,1985)The devils (Ken Russel,1970)La monaca di Monza (ERIPRANDO Visconti,1968).
Fulci's jab at the Catholic Church Part One. This is further evidence that Lucio Fulci was a man of many talents before becoming bitter at diminishing budgets and the pigeonholing of his skills into gory horror.
Here, Fulci gives us a historical drama about the corruption of the Catholic church (and not for the last time!) as well as the hypocrisy of Roman nobility, It's gory and horrible too, but in a dramatic, historical way!Beatrice Cenci is the daughter of Francesco Cenci, a Roman nobleman whom we first see feeding a man to a pack of dogs.
He's a nasty bastard all right, and has done something to offend the current Pope and now has to make amends by giving up a third of his wealth.
His children all hate him, even Beatrice, who has petitioned the Pope behind his back in order to enter the church as a nun.
This breaks the heart of her lover, Vassal Tomas Milian, but he still remains loyal and goes with her wishes.
However, while celebrating the death by smallpox of his two eldest sons(!), Francesco finds out about Beatrice wanting to join the church and arranges instead to keep her captive in the basement of his tower until he dieswhich seems to happen almost immediately after he says that.
As the film jumps back and forth on the timeline, we don't get to see what happened right away, which allows the Catholic Church to hire medieval Colombo to sort the mystery out!
Should that be D'catolic choich?Yes, the film is gory and full of violence and torture, but I think this only goes to show how awful human beings actually are and how corrupt the Catholic Church were back then.
Folks are put on racks, burned with tongs, and one character foreshadows many a future Fulci film by having a huge nail rammed into his eye.
That said, the film is not cheap looking and it's all deadly serious.
Everything looks exactly like a Fulci film too – no matter how cheap his films became in the late eighties, they still retained that certain look.
Tomas Milian stands out here as the repressed, subdued servant which had me worrying if he would ever do his 'covered in filth, screaming' bit (it happens about an hour in).
It's depressing stuff, but it's also interesting to see these directors working in different fields.
I'm not watching any of his comedies however, although I do like the title The Senator Liked Woman's Bottoms..
Interesting for Fulci fans but that's about it!.
Lucio Fulci.
Just hearing the name will make most cult cinema fans think of blood and gore - and for good reason since the great director was responsible for some of the best gory highlights ever made, and for that reason; he's just about the last director you would expect to make a period drama.
Fulci did have a varied career, making films in many of Italy's most famous genres, from westerns and Polizi flicks to Giallo and the blood and gore films with which he made his name...however, it would seem that period dramas were not his thing as Beatrice Cenci will not feature in my list of favourite Fulci flicks!
The plot is actually a decent base for a film and is set in 16th Century Italy.
The title character, Beatrice Cenci, is the daughter of a rich landowner named Francesco Cenci.
Francesco is a cruel man who keeps his daughter locked up in a room and tortures her.
Naturally, she's not best pleased at this arrangement and since she's not the only one who dislikes her father, she doesn't have a hard time getting some other people to help her murder him.I have to admit, part of the reason why I didn't like this film is because I'm not a fan of period dramas.
Naturally, my only reason for watching this is because I'm a big Fulci fan and I'll watch anything that the director's name is attached to, even if it is something from a genre I have no love for.
Even though I found the film rather dull, I do have to admire the great director's work on it.
He may be best known for his gore flicks, but Fulci's talent came out best in his earlier films and here he creates a great atmosphere and manages to pull good performances out of his cast.
Aside from Fulci at the helm, this film also features another great cult luminary in an early role, in the form of the always watchable Tomas Milian.
He is joined by Adrienne Larussa who takes the title role and does a good job with it.
Despite the fact that this is a departure from what Fulci is best known for, it's not completely devoid of the elements that won him his fan base as the film does feature some rather nasty torture scenes.
Overall, I can respect the craftsmanship on this film but I won't pretend to like it!
Recommended to hardcore Fulci fans only..
One of Lucio Fulci's most underrated and unjustly neglected films.
Lucio Fulci achieved his greatest enduring cult popularity with his gruesome and moody horror splatter pictures, but was actually a much more versatile and accomplished director than he usually gets credit for being.
This historical drama stands out as a sterling example of Fulci's remarkable cinematic talents: Lavishly mounted on a substantial budget, it manages to be genuinely poignant and gripping without ever becoming too sappy or melodramatic.
Fulci handles the stark and unsentimental telling of this shocking real life tragedy with admirable skill and assurance; he delivers a thoroughly convincing and unromantic evocation of the harsh 16th century period setting along with a properly grim'n'gritty atmosphere and trademark startling moments of brutal violence and sadistic torture.
Adrienne Larussa gives a strong and touching performance as Beatrice Cenci, a gentle, yet proud and resilient teenager who plotted with her faithful servant lover Olimpio (the always excellent Tomas Milian) to kill her cruel and abusive nobleman father Don Francesco Cenci (superbly played to the hateful hilt by Georges Wilson).
Mavie is likewise sound as Beatrice's long-suffering stepmother Lucrezia and Ignazio Spalla contributes an amusing turn as gross fat slob bandit Catalano.
Erco Menczer's sumptuous cinematography gives the movie an impressively lush and expansive look.
The grand and melodic score by Angelo Francesco Lavagnino and Silvano Spadaccino rates as another major asset.
But it's Fulci's inspired direction and the bold vehement anti-Catholic stance that really brings a certain raw and direct power to the film.
Well worth seeing.