With Flesh + Blood (1985), Paul Verhoeven takes the classic Hollywood swashbuckler and imbues it with all of the brutality of its period. The brutality in Flesh + Blood is as irredeemable as it is unrelenting as it follows a band of mercenaries and their prey. Verhoeven’s first english language film took aim at the romanticism of Hollywood epics and blasted it to smithereens.
Rutger Hauer stars as Martin; a character who would have been played by Errol Flynn some forty years earlier. Martin isn’t noble nor is he on a quest of redemption. Martin is an outlaw with no code other than to take what he wants when he wants it. What could have been a romance is instead a clear case of rape and Stockholm Syndrome when Martin abducts the lady Agnes (Jennifer Jason Leigh).
Verhoeven juxtaposes the sexual power plays between Agnes and Martin with the mayhem of Martin’s merry band and the misadventures of Agnes’ betrothed Steven (Tom Burlinson). The overt violence of the sword mirrors the psychosexual violence of Agnes and Martin. Despite the depraved nature of the relationship it still functions as a romance would in terms of driving the plot and garnering audience sympathies.
This is ultimately the point of Flesh + Blood. It’s the anti-epic; the unromantic version of a Hollywood classic that goes out of its way to offend and disgust the viewer. Flesh + Blood exists somewhere between The Wild Bunch (1969) and Excalibur (1981). That said, Flesh + Blood would make a killer double feature with Fulci’s Conquest (1983).
