Dangerous Beauty: Woman of power and pain!

At times many of us are products of our circumstances. Women are more likely to be one by virtue of their being constantly at the receiving end of men’s ‘mercy’! A well-made film on a medieval courtesan speaks immensely of both the power and the plight of a woman caught in a society high on moral and ethical codes, practicing none.

Director: Marshall Herskovitz

Film Clip

Veronica Franco is a courtesan in Venice. A courtesan is similar to temple and court dancers found in the ancient royal kingdoms in India. Veronica becomes a courtesan not by choice but circumstances. The man she loves, a senator from a royal lineage, cannot marry her because of his class. By dint of her being a courtesan, she is loved and hated at the same time. But what no one can deny is the fact that Veronica is much more honest, devout, passionate and innocent of heart, even as she is learned and intelligent, than all those who claim to be the conscious keepers of society.

In the end, though, the cruel joke of Church Inquisition takes almost better of her, but for the one man she loves standing up for her. He not only wants to save her, but save the Church and the State from punishing an innocent woman and spare all those high cultured men who were her ‘accomplices in witchcraft’ for which she was supposed to be condemned.

Catherine McCormack as Veronica richly deserves accolades for donning a character into which she effortlessly immerses herself. Each of her expressions is so delicately constructed that you cannot but feel with a woman brutalised by a cruel society.

The film also gives a glimpse of what Inquisition was all about and how dangerous and ruthless the Church-State combination at one time was!!

- Melwyn Pinto SJ