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Summary: Some call it Blasphemous but none say it's not true!
Review: I just saw the movie this evening and was apalled, horrified and pleased simultaneously. Mullan deserves an oscar for this expose of the sheer hypocricy of self appointed moralists and the abuse of power by those with the most of it. This film also serves as a grave warning as to the dangers of removing the separation of church and state. I was also amazed at the compliance of the Irish people at that time and can now understand both why the Protestants of Northern Ireland never wanted to be integrated into a united Ireland and why Ireland has yet to be free (you have to have freedom within before you can freedom without). Small details of Ireland are wonderfully captured: the old style door locks, the heavy keys, the electric crosses at the base of the paintings. I could almost feel the dampness of the locations. I spent a few years there in the early 80s and spent some summers in the 70s on my grandparents farm so I know about those little details. Like Mullan, I too am a lapsed Catholic. How lapsed? Any more lapsed and I'd be a Lutheran. Some 30,000 women we are told passed through these institutions. The last one closed in 1996. What were the Irish thinking up until then or were they? The film fails to mention that when one was closed in Dublin in the 90s the owners found over 100 unmarked graves. These they were told by the nuns were the graves of the fallen woman. Their payment for a lifetime of penal servitude. One must ask whether the women were even given a Christian funeral? I also enjoyed the scene where the oranges are left on the beds and wonder if there was any political relevance to that. This film's blunt brutality is it's beauty. The degradation scene of the women alone is not to be missed for it's callous lack of compassion.
When the Priest films two of the nuns and asks them to act naturaly and they can't, is as compelling as it is telling - they can't because they're not.
The totality of suffering of these girls will never be calculated and cannot. Yet it must be seen. Still, for all the suffering of the so-called "Fallen Women." The horrors suffered by the boys at the hands of the Christian Brothers during the same period would make for an equally horrific sequel. What happened to the children, particulary those that were sent to Australia to work in Catholic labor camps would make the perfect third film of a disturbing trilogy. All of this begs the question - What did the Popes know and when did they know it?
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Summary: Dark Times in History
Review: A must see movie!! How little we know of history.
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Summary: The Catholic Church¿s Gulag for Young Women
Review: Nobody has found any outright errors or even minor exaggerations in this horrifying true story of an Irish religious order's enslavement of young Catholic women. Ex-Catholic Director Peter Mullan was very careful to make sure "The Magdalene Sisters" would be accurate in virtually every detail. He knew that his critics would severely nitpick him. Mullan reveals to us an authoritarian denomination during the 1960s that sometimes used its overwhelming power in an unjust manner. Four teenage females are sent to a Catholic institution for ostensibly wayward girls so they can turn their lives around. One is a rape victim, but similar to the radical Muslims her Catholic social milieu holds the victim personally responsible for the crime. Another is an orphan who flirts with boys and therefore might just get into trouble. The other two are guilty of mostly trusting the wrong men in their lives. No consideration is ever given to their so-called rehabilitation or education. Sadly, the reality is that they have been sent to a laundry that makes enormous profits for the Irish Catholic Church. They are nothing more than slaves who are treated with contempt and daily ridicule. One priest even sexually abuses them. Where was the secular state while all this evil was occurring? On a practical level, Mullan points out there was no separation of church and state in Ireland during that era. Moreover, the courts and police cooperated fully with the church authorities. These women literally had no one to turn to for help. Even their own families abandoned them. This film is a must see for Catholics and non-Catholics alike. The former are especially obligated to face the awful truth and make sure that this horror story is never again repeated. Is there a chance that "The Magdalene Sisters" may destroy their Catholic faith? I'm afraid that this is a chance that has to be taken. They have no moral right to run away from the well researched facts. After all, didn't the great theologian, Thomas Aquinas, teach that Catholics should never be afraid of the truth? Many of these same Catholics rightfully took to task the gulag in the former Soviet Union. It is now time for them to admit that the Catholic Church had its own gulags. "The Magdalene Sisters" easily earns five stars. I hope it is nominated for Academy Awards in at least the best picture and best director categories. Peter Mullan should be very proud of this first rate production. You may also wish to view him as an actor him in "The Claim." This may very well be one the greatest overlooked westerns of all time. I'm stunned that this particular film did so poorly at the box office.
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Summary: This is real---A wonderful movie with accurate pain
Review: Coming from someone with personal experience living in a (not Catholic but "Non-denom. Christian") cult home, this movie was really well done. This movie was marvelously directed and I pray that everyone involved recieve great reward. This movie is written up by viewers as Catholic churh vs. God, and every other sort of analogy, but evil exists in all groups(unfortuately). I do not condemn any religion after seeing this movie nor did I from any personal experience. "BRAVO...Peter Mullan"
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Summary: "IT WILL CLEAN THE SIN FROM YOUR SOUL"
Review: The story behind this film is excellent. Based on historical events, THE MAGDALENE SISTERS follows three young women who were simultaneously committed to a Magdalene Asylum in County Dublin, Ireland for sinful acts of the sexual nature that are condemned by the Catholic Church (having a child out of wedlock, being raped, flirting with young men, etc). Behind closed doors brutal and selfish nuns treated the women horribly in an attempt to make them redeem their sinful acts. The women had little or no prospects of being released and some even grew old. They were often forgotten by society and deemed unworthy. It is appalling that these events really happened and were only discontinued a couple of decades ago. Watching this film made me want to cry out in protest. THE MAGDALENE SISTERS is yet another chapter of neglect and wrongdoings of the Catholic Church. It is a very good film that will make you think and remorse for the women who were subjected to such treatment.
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Summary: Unsmiling Irish Eyes
Review: The Magdalene Sisters is a powerful portrayal of one of the bigger embarrassments of the Catholic Church. This dramatization is based on the quite real process of sending Irish "bad girls" away to serve, basically, as slave labor in labor camps run by nuns. The representative "composites" depicted here are sent to the Magdalene Laundry for a variety of "sins"-having children out of wedlock, being raped by a cousin, being a "loose" woman (without ever having sex). The facilities were named after Mary Magdalene, the sinner/saint who, in the eyes of the clergy, had something in common with the girls shipped into their "care." I'm not surprised the Vatican newspaper didn't give this film a lot of stars! It is a damning condemnation of Catholic hypocrisy and clerical brutality. The nuns portrayed in this film have little to do with anything truly Christian... there is no sign of forgiveness, caring, love, compassion, or understanding. Instead, the girls are offered hostility, insults, shame, sadism, and physical and psychological violence. Some of these nuns would make your average Nazi concentration camp guard seem relatively kind and gentle. Convents will not be using clips from this film in their recruiting videos. The movie is riveting, moving, and distressing. It pains my Irish genes to see this dark, shameful phase of Irish history (and it makes me shudder to learn that the last Magdalene Laundry closed less than ten years ago).
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Summary: One of the best movies I've ever seen
Review: I could not wait to see this movie when it first came out in London. I'm an American living in London at the moment, and wasn't sure if it would ever come out in the States. It was mildly put, an amazing film. There was not one single thing that I would have changed. It had some of the most creative camera shots and sequences I've seen in awhile. I think the most important part of the film is the story that is being told. I also believe that one of the most powerful scenes in the movie is when the nuns make the girls strip down naked and then taunt them. I have never been so moved. The girls in these Magdalene homes create a very strong bond even though they rarely are allowed to speak to one another. This is a film that should be widely released in the states as I think it's very important for other cultures to be informed. This movie isn't something to go see if you are looking for a funny uplifting time, but I'd still see it over and over again.
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Summary: Recalling the hundreds of years
Review: At present, it seems that there are few more dire issues than those at hand--war, the messy attempts at post-war restructuring, SARS. It is therefore easy to forget about the daily struggles of one of the most oppressed groups in the world, both historically and at present: women. It is for this reason that I feel 'The Magdalene Sisters' is one of the most important films I have seen to date. At the simplest of levels, the film depicts the horrific experiences of the young women in the Magdalene Institution--both their physical and psychological torture, imposed upon them by the nuns of Magdalene. We become aware that the girls are not at Magdalene because of a legal matter--it is not a prison in that sense. We therefore become aware that Magdalene is a prison of their own making: either they remain because they accept the presumption that this punishment will redeem their sins, or they stay because they cannot completely accept the fact that while it would be difficult, it is in their power to leave the school. It is, in fact, of their own family's doing that they are subjected to the horrors of Magdalene. So even at the most basic levels of appreciation, there is already plenty of insight and emotional triggering to glean from the film. Beneath, however, is the depiction of a deeply rooted prejudice against women. Not only are the girls sent to Magdalene by their families, they are sent there because it is presumed that they are 'sinners'. We are also forced to witness the psychological tortures both to the women of the film, and women in general, subject upon themselves. In these scenes, we note that the presumed characteristic of vanity is within the women-and some girls, mind you-of Magdalene. It is used against them for mockery and humiliation-and we cringe as we note that in fact, it works. We wish for the women to be anomalies, to not care about their bodies, their hair, their breasts-but we know that finally, after hundreds of years of subjection to a societal imperative of beauty, the women at Magdalene cannot be held to such a high expectation. They too, hurt, when ridiculed about their physical appearance. We are reminded of these hundreds of years. Perhaps most heartbreaking and stunning, however, is the realisation that these women do not know each other any better than they know the nuns-but that they impose upon themselves an obligation to look out for each other. That they do at all is no less than inspiring. See this film. Although you may not consider yourself a 'feminist', you may find yourself understanding why some people are.
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Summary: riveting film
Review: I saw The Magdalene Sisters at the New York Film Festival and, luckily, the director, Peter Mullan,was there to discuss it. He said he got the idea for the film when he heard over the radio in 1988 the account of a young woman in an orphanage who was sent to one of several institutions of The Magdalene Sisters of the Good Shepherd in Ireland for being too beautiful. Hers is one of the four principal cases the film is based upon. The film opens with one even more harrowing, that of a young woman who was raped at a wedding reception by a cousin. Some of the men at the wedding conspired with the local priest to spirit her away to that same group home. Mullan said while he was filming he learned one of the actresses had belonged to that religious order for four years. When he asked her why she had dropped out, she replied she could not be so cruel. Several women in the audience thought the most powereful episode was when many of the inmates were forced to strip and made fun of by a nun.
The film has been criticized by the Vatican newpaper in an article beginning with the headline "Liar, Liar, Mullan" because the movie uses composites of persons, but the film is based on a BBC documentary and investigations by the Irish and British governments. The film depicts faithfully how women, most of whom were sent away for having children out of wedlock, were forced to work 365 days a year cleaning clothes; they were imprisoned for life, and if they escaped the police or their families would send them back. Ireland was for many years a theocracy. Eventually when people got washing machines, there was no need for these laundries the order made their money from, so much that in one county, Galway, the church used some of the money to build two cathedrals. Seeing this movie made me realize how right my sixth grade teacher Sister Agnes was. She strongly advocated the complete separation of church and state and was the polar opposite of the nuns of this Irish order, which died out when the public no longer needed their laundries.
However, this is no dull documentary. It is a riveting film about often courageous women who endure against a system of unjust servitude. Note the scenes of an inmate whose only consolations are posessing a St. Christopher medal and briefly seeing her young son standing outside the gates on a few occasions; they are deeply moving.
The film won the Venice Film Festival. Peter Mullan said reporters who were present for the screening there called him in New York and told him priests were videotaping people going into the theater and telling them we know who you are. Obviously, such a lame attempt to dissuade people from seeing it makes the film even more fascinating. It remains the most powerful film I saw in 2002.
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Summary: OSCAR predictions for The Magdalene Sisters
Review: The Magdalene Sisters is the most important nad most successful Irish film for generations. It is estimated that so far, 1 in 3 of the population of Ireland have seen this movie and have come away shocked, overwhelmed and ultimately uplifted.
Set in mid 60's, it tells the story of 4 girls who because of their "dubious pasts" are taken into the care of the catholic church into one of the notorious convents know as the'Magdalene Laundries'. These poor girls have suffered on the outside also. One was raped by her cousin, two had children 'out of wedlock' and one was an orphan accused of being beautiful and making unwanted advances to local boys. In effect, they like many others were imprisoned for life for their crimes and suffer further horrendous aflictions.
The director, Peter Mullan, has produced a masterpiece. It is not an Arthouse film but is pure a Mainstream classic and deserves a nationwide USA screening. The performances are brilliant. Geraldine McEwan's sadistic Reverend Mother is deserved of an Oscar! The young virtually unknown cast are sure for stardom - in particular watch the on screen Chemisty between Nora-Jane Noone and Chris Simpson who provide a much to brief love interest and nail-biting scenes.
I won't give it away but watch out for a very exciting and uplifting ending. Look forward to a standing ovation and even more prizes for this Golden Lion and Toronto Festival winner.
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