Tonight on Amazon: 30 years before Game of Thrones, there was this masterpiece

If the vision of a film like Excalibur, although it belongs to fantasy, it already offered a rather radical and avant-garde vision of the Middle Ages with its violence, often brutal, in the middle of which swords and weapons were rarely broken. With the brutality of the armor, it’s safe to say that Paul Verhoeven’s Flesh and Blood, released in 1985, predates the violence depicted in Game of Thrones by almost 30 years.

The first film was shot in an English and American-Dutch-Spanish co-production. flesh and blood It has become an iconic, seminal work of what has been called “medieval realism” and is available on Amazon Prime.

Set in the 16th century, 1501 to be exact, the movie Paul Verhoeven It features a group of mercenaries who, feeling wronged by their lord, kidnap and rape his son’s fiancée before striking fear into his castle…

against the idealized Middle Ages

From a historical perspective, the film shows the unsavory practices of what we used to call large companies waging war on the whims of the highest bidder. Thus, these large companies consisted of mercenary warriors who, deprived of employers in time of peace, grouped themselves into groups and lived at the expense of the population, already terribly weakened by war, famine and disease.

for verhoeven flesh and blood There used to be a kind of response/reaction to the idealized or at least highly romanticized Middle Ages on the screen. He wanted to show a time when the brutality of battle, disease and poverty killed people more often than natural death, which was very rare.

A replicant at the head of the mercenaries

At the head of his group of mercenaries: his favorite actor Rutger Hauer, with whom he had the worst relationship during filming; The one who still saw him as his alter ego. The reason for the fight in particular: an actor who made his debut in the United States (in 1982 in Blade Runner and in 1985 in the excellent Ladyhawke) and who thought that his role as a mercenary robber and thug. flesh and blood will seriously hamper his career.

“Under pressure from his agent, he agreed to do the film, but he didn’t want to do it. He thought this anti-hero role would hurt him. It was the most unpleasant film of my career.” The director would say later.

It was also thanks to this film that the young Jennifer Jason Leigh really revealed herself to the general public at the age of 23. The actress was personally chosen by Paul Verhoeven, who was full of praise for her.

“There is no best actress in America” will say with a little emphasis. Which doesn’t stop her from subjecting him to one of the most disturbing and unhealthy rape scenes ever seen on screen.

strong set flesh and blood is a film unlike any other and also features a promising actor playing one of the main roles, Tom Burlinson, who plays the son of a lord who wants to conquer his castle and his bride. An actor who, unfortunately, almost disappeared from circulation since then.