Middle Ages as mirror of our time
During the decade in which he developed “Flesh and Blood,” which will start at the Avon tomorrow, the filmmaker, Paul Verhoeven, had two goals. One was to tell a rousing adventure story, loosely inspired by such sixteenth century events as the siege of the city of Munster. The other was to show us ourselves in the mirror of the past. “This is not a fairy tale because the Middle Ages were not a fairy tale,” says Verhoeven. “It was a cruel, wanton, dangerous, stinking time in which to live. The miracle is that anyone survived. That’s what the film is about, people who survive, each in their own remarkable way. Rutger Hauer plays Martin, a mercenary serving under Captain Hawkwood (Jack Thompson) in t(ie army of Arnolfini, a petty nobleman. Arnolfini
has promised his troops that if they reclaim his ancestrial city, they will
have 24 hours to ransack the homes of the rich. Instead, he celebrates
victory by banishing the:; soldiers, confiscating their'i loot for his own treasury. •
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Press, 24 July 1986, Page 22
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176Middle Ages as mirror of our time Press, 24 July 1986, Page 22
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