When Virgin Territory premiered in 2007, it was described as a romantic adventure comedy taking place in 14th-century plague-stricken Italy. However, behind the film’s youthful exuberance and cheeky title, it incorporated a peculiar mixture of bawdy humor, medieval romance, and chaotic improvisation that was boundless on and off the screen. It was a project that promised adventure and laughter, but it also placed its cast and crew in unpredictable ways.
Virgin Territory was adapted loosely from Giovanni Boccaccio’s The Decameron. (The original title was Decameron: Angels and Virgins.) With a young cast that included Hayden Christensen, Mischa Barton, and Tim Roth, it had all the elements of a 2000s cult classic — gorgeous people in elaborate ornate costumes, a comedy of Shakespearean proportions, and a healthy serving of raunchy humor. However, what was the most unpredictable of all was the making of the film, a reflection of its tone.
Love, Lies, and Laughs in Plague Time
The movie is set in Florence during the Black Plague and is centered on the character Lorenzo de Lamberti (Hayden Christensen), a charming but still penniless young man who survives his wit and scams. After offending a powerful nobleman, Lorenzo goes to the remote countryside and meets Pampinea Anastagi (Mischa Barton), a beautiful high-born woman whose father died of the plague. She is hiding from a scheming and already rich suitor Gerbino (Tim Roth), who wants her fortune.
Lorenzo is pretending to be someone he is not, a painful and persistent reality in the movie. Among the masked balls, misidentified people, and sexual adventures, love of the strangest sort develops. To ease the somber reality of the plague, the movie is humorously transformed into a fast-paced romantic comedy.
There seems to be unacknowledged humor on the reality of survival involving deceit. Lorenzo (played by Christensen) is not a traditional rabbit-hole romantic lead but is still flawed and desperate, while Pampinea (played by Barton) is trapped over a struggle involving the reality of self-assertion in a male-dominated world.
The film resides in the oscillation between comedy and tragedy, ultimately concluding with the optimistic perspective that love, in all of its flawed forms, can endure the harshest of times.
Hayden Christensen – A Rebel Escaping His Own Shadows
For Hayden Christensen, Virgin Territory came at a strange point in his career. He had just come out of the huge fame and wrath that came with playing Anakin Skywalker in the Star Wars prequels and was trying to reinvent himself. He had been branded as ‘wooden’ and a victim of stilted dialogue and sci-fi stiffness. Having a go at a cheeky historical role was meant to be his way of breaking free and reminding people that he could do charm and comedy and not just intense brooding.
On set, Christensen was said to have thrown himself in to the physical comedy and even designed stunts and did the horseback scenes. He had to escape Hollywood to enjoy the character’s carefree swagger. This was in part to the Italian shoot locations, especially in Tuscany and Siena. However, this was not all easy. He had to endure suffocating summer temperatures in stifling summer period costumes. The comedy scripts had to be re-written, forcing large numbers of retakes to get the timing.
Hayden’s off-screen humility and sense of humor also impressed his colleagues. “He never behaved like the Star Wars star,” one crew member said. “He was always laughing, always trying to lighten the mood, even when the weather or the script didn’t cooperate.” His chemistry with Barton, equal parts flirtatious and awkward, mirrored the film’s tone — sincere one moment, absurd the next.
Mischa Barton – From The O.C. to the Italian Countryside
Mischa Barton, in the wake of her celebrity from The O.C., was another Hollywood name trying to transition into film. Virgin Territory provided her the opportunity to play a strong yet vulnerable character, and one of the first roles she was able to book was much more complex and admirable than the portrayals she had to engrain with herself in the teen drama. Barton approached the role of Pampinea with much more than a mere sense of duty, as she concentrated primarily on the emotions she needed to portray, well hidden under layers of comedy that needed to be executed.
The Italian production, much like the history of the country, endured a rather complex and troubling journey in regard to the production. Anything and everything relative to the film was to be endlessly shot, the most brazen and cruel of which are the days, within communally and mechanically primitive countrysides. THE HEAT of the huge period gowns, severely tacky corsets, and heavy dreadful bodices within a rustic, dry, and dusty countrside further contributed to interacting horror of the very environment. Nonetheless, her gallantry was firmly evident.
In conversations surrounding the film, she acknowledged that some viewers may be taken aback by the film’s humor, yet she defended its essence. “It’s about people finding love when the world’s falling apart,” she said. “That never gets old.”
As Pampinea, a character that is anchored by intelligence, slightly naive yet fiercely determined, she was able to ground the film within its chaotic energy.
When the Set Turned Into Controlled Madness
David Leland, director of Mona Lisa and Wish You Were Here, approached Virgin Territory with a blend of historical interest and humorous creativity. His goal was to create a raunchy yet romantic adult fairy tale, silly yet soulful.
The production faced challenges mostly due to the weather. There would be sudden downpours and filming would have to be halted in the middle of a scene. Maintenance of the medieval costumes and elaborate sets was also a challenge. There was also the issue of a mixed cast, which comprised of people from different countries, and the local Italian crew, which would often lead to funny miscommunications.
For a time, a scene of a horseback chase had to be re-shot because tourists wandered into the scene. There was also a time when a fire, meant to be dramatic, grew larger than planned and the actors had to improvise to escape the dramatization before the crew could extinguish it.
The onset of filming had its challenges; however, the set was described as having a warm, cozy, and happy environment. Between breaks, Hayden and Mischa shared a wonderful duet to the improvisations of Hayden’s guitar, and for many, the professional dry humor of Tim Roth lightened the mood and was refreshing. While working on the film, many were able to create and preserve wonderful memories, and for everybody in the project, the atmosphere and solidarity were the best part.
The Hype That Fizzled
The pre-release marketing of Virgin Territory highly described the film as a “steamy, adventurous romantic comedy” and was creatively dubbed “A Knight’s Tale meets American Pie” in the media. The marketing used “sensual humor” with “young and passionate” actors in the pre-release teaser trailers, thus generating considerable excitement for fans of Hayden Christensen and Mischa Barton.
The film was ultimately a marketing failure release in the wrong. There were “poor release timing and a limited distribution”. The marketing positioned the film in three contradicting genres, with the critiques saying the film was “a historical romance, a teen comedy, or an erotic farce”. The film was also described as “uneven” and “tonally uncertain”. For some demographic, however, the film was considered a high pleasure with its vibrant and light visuals and beautifully romantic scenes. Its charming, romantic, and effortless chemistry of the leads, was even more charming and romantic of the lovers in the film.
Italy and some other European countries was appreciative of the more playful approach to The Decameron. Later, with the advent of DVD and streaming technologies, audiences had more forgiving perspectives and did not view the film as a flawed blockbuster, but as an earnest attempt, although a messy one, to combine humor with history.
Beneath the Laughter, a Glimpse of Heart
Years later, what makes Virgin Territory memorable is the sincerity of its intentions. It attempts to find joy in the face of death, love in the midst of chaos, and beauty in the imperfection that surrounds all of us. There was the same energy in those working behind the cameras: actors shedding their Hollywood personas, a director searching for magic in the unbridled moments, and a crew that, in the maddening medieval costumes, laughingly enduring the hot Italian sun and the endless reshoots.
Like its characters, the film holds on to charm rather than polish. It offers a chaotic production as testament to its beauty, not a masterpiece, but a memory. For all involved, Virgin Territory was a sun-soaked, chaotic, laughter-filled memory of love, risk, and the wild unpredictability of filmmaking itself.
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