By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Peter Mullan
Starring: Anne-Marie Duff | Geraldine McEwen | Nora-Jane Noone
Country: ireland, united_kingdom
Year: 2003
Running time: 114
IMDB: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0138524/combined
Bruce says: “Most films which deal with Christian religion as subject matter deal in faith and redemption. Then we have films such as THE MAGDALENE SISTERS and the brilliant Canadian film, THE BOYS OF ST. VINCENT, which focus on human dignity and those who were robbed of it at early age. In both films the Catholic Church is the predator.
“THE MAGDALENE SISTERS is based on fact although it is a work of fiction. Before this film opened I had never heard of the Magdalene Sisters. The Magdalene Sisters ran a convent where young women were used as slave labor in their laundry business. I was shocked to learn that families actually did send their daughters off to indentured servitude. What shocked me more was to learn that the last of the laundries closed in 1996, not even ten years ago. What kinds of families condone treating their daughters
like animals? This is a world without love, compassion and human decency. I get angry every time I think about it.
“THE MAGDALENE SISTERS follows the fate of three young girls who for different reasons end up at the convent. The first, Margaret, is raped by a cousin at her brother’s wedding. She is branded a disgrace to the family and forcibly carted off to the convent. Rose has a child out of wedlock and the baby is literally snatched out of her hands. She, too, is dragged off to the laundry for her transgression. The third, Bernadette, is a young flirtatious and highly spirited girl that nuns at the orphanage fret over – the worries are not over any sins or overindulgence on her part but over the potential for her teenage hormones to damage the orphanage’s reputation. Much easier for all concerned if she were shipped off to the Magdalene Sisters as well.
“There is no shortage of plot here, but there is not much depth of character or examination of the culture that creates abusive monsters and families who support them. Peter Mullan, both writer and director, could have made a better film had he spent more time developing scenes which let us get to know Margaret, Rose and Bernadette better. Mostly we see them in the shocking ‘situations’ that move the plot along, but we don’t know enough about how they thought and felt about their lives prior to their entrance into the Catholic prison system.
“And it’s not just the girls I’m wondering about. What kind of culture breeds priests and nuns that find any part of keeping young
women in captivity acceptable? They are cold, calloused and brutal. I’d like a glimpse of them as children to better understand how all of this happened. Did they enter in service to God out of love or for revenge?” 4 cats