I watched a series on Netflix called "Thieves Of The Wood." It's a Belgian historical/adventure series about a Robin Hood like character named Jan de Lichte. It was originally titled "De Bende Van Jan de Lichte" and is in Dutch, with English subtitles. The title character returns to his home town in Flanders after deserting from the army during the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748.) Things are not going well for the folks back home. The rich in the town want ever more money and power. They are quite willing to whip, imprison and exile any who oppose them. So Jan, who is a commoner, joins the gang of his friend Tinke and begins robbing from the rich. He falls for a wealthy young woman, Heloise, who is to be married to one of the wealthy elite, and more trouble ensues.
In the first episode we get a hint of how powerful and ruthless (and fun-loving) the wealthy class is in a scene that had to have been cribbed from Eulalia's delightful "Lassie Hunting In The Northern Forest." Here indeed we have a linkie-rug, though not a very sporting one.
The linkies, orphans all, and therefore, according the master of the hunt, nothing but the spawn of thieves, murderers, and fornicators, are lined up and are instructed in the rules of the hunt, which basically consist of "Don't get caught." The Master of the Hunt fires a pistol into the air and the chase is on. As I said, not very sporting, as the men immediately give chase. The result of being caught is indicated in the third picture.
We meet Heloise (Charlotte Timmers) as she is in the midst of a negotiation for her hand in marriage to a wealthy young fop. She demonstrates her womanly attainments by playing the piano, or harpsichord, or whatever and er, by wearing a low cut gown. She's not particularly interested in the dude, but what's a woman of breeding and attainment to do? Run away with a handsome thief and live with him and his gang in the woods? As if!
Jan and Heloise meet cute when Heloise is out hunting with her beau. Jan and his group happen upon them and rob them. I include the picture not for what it shows, but what it suggests in the way of possibility. You see, earlier, a group of thieves stopped a coach and robbed the two wealthy passengers not only of their money but of their clothing as well, having them strip almost completely naked. (For some unaccountable reason they left them their stockings and shoes.) There full frontal nudity, but the passengers were both elderly men, so who cares? But the precedent had been set. And during this scene I'm thinking, "Hey guys, hint hint, you know she's wearing an awfully nice hat, nice coat, nice scarf. I bet whatever she's wearing underneath all that is nice too . . ."
Alas, they don't take me up on my hint. The pair is unmolested and allowed to remain fully clothed. After the robbery, Heloise's wealthy beau runs off in fear, leaving Heloise stranded. She returns home, and confronts the guy for being a coward.
Surprise! Heloise runs away with Jan and lives with him briefly in the woods, but is recaptured and since she obviously has been possessed by a demon, is subjected to an exorcism. She is tied down and whipped by the archbishop of the town. It's not a great scene. Heloise seems rather distant and distracted, and does not react much to the whipping. Maybe she has been possessed. Most likely by the demon Dongivafuck.
There is a judicial whipping at the town's whipping post at the start of the series, but the victim, though female, is so unattractive that I didn't post it.
All in all, I thought the series was pretty good. The settings and the costumes seemed absolutely authentic to my untutored eye, and the characters were interesting and well acted, except perhaps for Heloise, who always seemed distant and uninvolved in whatever scene she was in.
A similar point has been made time and again, but my disappointment with the hack job on this movie is such that I'll restate it: Why is it okay to show a woman being burned alive, but not okay to show her naked? Oh, that's right, because full frontal nudity is immoral!
"Take it off," she says, "Or we will."
"HOPE LOST" is an italian crime-thriller-torture movie released in 2015. A young girl from Romania is deceptively convinced by a man claiming to be a film director to come to Rome for auditions. Instead she falls into a life of prostitution that ultimately becomes a real descent to hell up to an extreme situation
" HOPE LOST" (2015)
"HOPE LOST" (2015) 
