Dangerous Beauty

As I was reading one of the many self-help books piled beside my bed, I came across a reference to the movie Dangerous Beauty. The movie is based on true events, and details the love story between Veronica Franco and a nobleman named Marco Venier.

Image Credit: http://www.impawards.com/1998/dangerous_beauty_ver2.html

Franco was a famed Venetian courtesan and poet from the sixteenth century. In the movie, Venier refuses to marry her because she lacks a 'proper' dowry. Heartbroken and hopeless, she rather reluctantly allows her mother, a well known courtesian in her own time, to sculpt her into an object of desire for the nobility of the city. The movie captures the game of cat and mouse between the two fated lovers, and hits a climax when the plague overtakes the region. Religious fanatics preach that the plague is God's way of punishing a city that indulges sins of the flesh, and Franco is tried by the Spanish Inquisition for Witchcraft.

Here is her defense:

"I confess that as a young girl I loved a man who would not marry me for want of a dowry. I confess I had a mother who taught me a different way of life, one I resisted at first but learned to embrace. I confess I became a courtesan, traded yearning for power, welcomed many rather than be owned by one. I confess I embraced a whore's freedom over a wife's obedience. I confess I find more ecstasy in passion than in prayer. Such passion is prayer. I confess I pray still to feel the touch of my lover's lips. His hands upon me, his arms enfolding me... Such surrender has been mine. I confess I pray still to be filled and enflamed. To melt into the dream of us, beyond this troubled place, to where we are not even ourselves. To know that always, this is mine. If this had not been mine-if I had lived any other way-a child to her husband's will, my soul hardened from lack of touch and lack of love... I confess such endless days and nights would be a punishment far greater than you could ever mete out. You, all of you, you who hunger so for what I give yet cannot bear to see that kind of power in a woman. You call God's greatest gift-ourselves, our yearning, our need to love-you call it filth and sin and heresy... I repent there was no other way open to me. I do not repent my life."

I won't reveal the verdict or any other plot details in case anyone is interested in watching. Many critics found the movie cheesy, but I love a big sweeping speech, and a movie that motivates me to dig deeper about the characters I've grown invested in during my hour and 51 minutes of view time! If you want to learn more about Franco's life and art check out Poems and Selected Letters.

Curious what others think about the film, so please chime in!