The Little Hours
Oct. 11th, 2020 02:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ivyficThe Little Hours is a 2017 movie based on two stories from the Decameron by Boccaccio, a fourteenth-century book that my college comp lit professor had a serious hard-on for. The stories in particular are about a man who poses as a deaf-mute so he can gain access to a convent and sleep with the nuns, and about a man who cuckolds his lord and gets away with it through his cleverness. The movie melds these two stories into one narrative. Though it is following the plot points of the original stories (very loosely), all of the dialogue is improvised, so the main gimmick of the film is hearing fourteenth century nuns swear like sailors. (One of my favorite lines is, "I thought eventually I could turn you all into witches and you'd join my coven, but I know that sounds stupid." There's a whole sequence where a wife complains about her husband's obsession with a Guelph conspiracy that just cracked me up.) I also just really enjoy Aubrey Plaza--I bounced off Legion, but if you liked Aubrey Plaza's energy in that, that's what she's got going in this film.
It is one of those movies that makes you wonder how it ever got made. Like, this movie is for about five people, and the box office reflects that.
I would really like to recommend this movie--I found a lot of it very funny--but it has some fairly huge caveats:
1. Antisemitism - There's some antisemitism in here. I don't know if it's in the original text, though I wouldn't be surprised. Even if it was, though, this is such a loose adaptation, they did not have to include it. It is not relevant to the plot, it's just there, and I really wish they had chosen to leave it out.
2. Sexual assault - The original story is pretty misogynist, at least in premise--all you need to do is get a dick into a convent and the nuns all jump on it. This movie shifts the power to making the nuns the sexual aggressors...but that takes it to a rapey place. This is central to the plot of the film, so just wanted to put a big warning that it's there.
The movie is rated R, and I honestly don't know how they managed that. There is a LOT of swearing, a lot of nudity, and a lot of explicit sex.
So yeah, if you are the sort of person who sees raunchy anachronistic adaptation of medieval text and says YES, THAT, and the above caveats are not deal breakers, this film is on Netflix.
Also, there is a moment where they distract guards by putting a candle on the back of a turtle, and I am 100% using that in my next D&D campaign.
It is one of those movies that makes you wonder how it ever got made. Like, this movie is for about five people, and the box office reflects that.
I would really like to recommend this movie--I found a lot of it very funny--but it has some fairly huge caveats:
1. Antisemitism - There's some antisemitism in here. I don't know if it's in the original text, though I wouldn't be surprised. Even if it was, though, this is such a loose adaptation, they did not have to include it. It is not relevant to the plot, it's just there, and I really wish they had chosen to leave it out.
2. Sexual assault - The original story is pretty misogynist, at least in premise--all you need to do is get a dick into a convent and the nuns all jump on it. This movie shifts the power to making the nuns the sexual aggressors...but that takes it to a rapey place. This is central to the plot of the film, so just wanted to put a big warning that it's there.
The movie is rated R, and I honestly don't know how they managed that. There is a LOT of swearing, a lot of nudity, and a lot of explicit sex.
So yeah, if you are the sort of person who sees raunchy anachronistic adaptation of medieval text and says YES, THAT, and the above caveats are not deal breakers, this film is on Netflix.
Also, there is a moment where they distract guards by putting a candle on the back of a turtle, and I am 100% using that in my next D&D campaign.
no subject
Date: 2020-10-17 11:22 pm (UTC)I also was put out by the bits you mention, but overall I loved this. Yes, it's HILARIOUS. Especially the Guelph conspiracy. And the entire coven disaster.