I found The Magdalene Sisters on iPlayer when I was looking for a festive film on Christmas day… It certainly wasn’t festive, so I left it until today.
BBC iPlayer described it as a ‘hard-hitting, controversial convent drama in which three young women battle to maintain their spirits in a Catholic asylum run by sadistic nuns’. I’m not sure what it was about this description that made me want to watch it, but now that I’ve seen it, the description doesn’t really do credit to the film…
It was certainly tough to watch, particularly because it’s all based on real life situations. The epilogue reveals that 30,000 women were held in Magdalene asylums, and that these three stories are of ‘the lucky ones’, if they can be called lucky… they escaped, but have to live with the memories forever.
This harrowing film tells the true stories of four girls who are admitted to a Magdalene asylum in incredibly Catholic Ireland. To begin with, the mission of these asylums was to help the ‘fallen’ women back into society, but the Magdalene laundries soon became quite prison-like and awful. The women were usually required to undertake hard physical labour, including long hours doing laundry and needle work. Their daily routine included long periods of prayer and enforced silence, with minimal food and recreation time.
Despite being difficult to watch at times, the plot was captivating and compelling, and the acting was brilliant. Within fifteen minutes, all three of the girls have been introduced and have just entered the asylum. This would have been the ideal time to turn it off and think ‘nope, this is too powerful for me’, and as much as I wanted to, I couldn’t. The filming and the acting combined had brought me too far into the story, and I found that I cared too much about the girls to just turn it off.
The first fifteen minutes introduces the girls, Margaret, Bernadette and Rose (who is referred to by the nuns as Patricia, which is her confirmation name, after they tell her they ‘already have a Rose’). Margaret is put into the asylum after she is raped by her cousin; this alone made me feel sick, as the unfairness was overwhelming. Bernadette is admitted purely just for being pretty and flirtatious. Rose is first shown in the hospital, having just given birth to a baby boy. Her father immediately calls her outside and demands that she signs her baby over to the Church orphanage, while she is taken away to the Magdalene asylum for having a child out of wedlock.
Happily, the three women shown in the film manage to get out of the asylum, although this is after about four years of constant work and ridicule at the hands of the nuns. Margaret is eventually released by her younger brother (who claims he had spent the last four years ‘growing up’), while Bernadette and Rose escape together, using teamwork to overpower the mother superior and get the keys to the front door. They then run away to Dublin to visit Bernadette’s cousin, who provides them with clothes, money and a job for Bernadette. Rose is shown getting on a bus to Liverpool. Crispina (who the girls become friends with in the asylum) has a sadder fate, however, and is taken away to a mental institution to stop her from being able to tell everyone about the priest’s sexual abuse towards her. Her mental state deteriorates while in the institution, and she dies of anorexia aged just 24. The film is based on a documentary, ‘Sex in a Cold Climate’, which is a real life documentary about the four women the film features. Although the names are changed, the stories are all similar and scarily true.
As well as it being a fascinating, eye-opening film, it’s also incredibly well filmed. There are several brilliant shots, such as a close up of Bernadette’s eye as the nuns forcibly cut all her hair off. It’s not only a shocking shot, but gives a lot of detail in just one picture. The nun can also be seen reflected in her eye.
Another brilliant shot, in my opinion, was when a piece of bloody tissue was placed into water and it slowly expanded and the blood ran… The focus on such a small thing made me concentrate much more, to find out why the tissue was covered in blood. I thought this was a very impressive, thought-provoking shot.
In my opinion, the only bad thing about this film is the incredibly negative view it could give of Catholics and nuns. This is always the problem with films highlighting the extremes in the world; it can often lead to gross sweeping generalisations and stigma against particular races or religions. However, I feel that things like this shouldn’t be hidden away, and that this film is a very important one. Peter Mullan has said in interviews that he made the film because victims of the Magdalene asylums had “no closure”, as they had not received any recognition, compensation, or apology.
I watched Session 9 a couple of weeks ago (stupidly, with the lights off), after it was suggested to me when I idiotically said I wanted to watch a scary film…
As well as this, it builds up the tension and just as it gets to a point where it seems as though something is going to happen, there is suddenly a very odd camera shot… This took me out of the film completely, and actually made me laugh, which is never the aim in a thriller.
My favourite is that of Jamie and Aurélia, who meet when Jamie retreats to a quiet cottage in France for Christmas, so he can focus on his writing and escape his failed relationship. While there, he falls for his Portuguese speaking housekeeper, Aurélia. Despite the language barrier, the subtitles show that they both have similar thoughts and get on well. When Jamie returns to England, he immediately takes up Portuguese classes, and eventually travels to ask Aurélia to marry him, in Portuguese. She replies ‘yes’, as she has been learning English for the same reason.
Another story I like is that of David and Natalie, although it is not as relatable as Jamie and Aurélia’s situation… After all, we’re not all prime minister. David and Natalie meet in 10 Downing Street, where Natalie works as a member of David’s household staff. They inevitably fall in love, but David pushes her away, as they are ‘not allowed’ to be in love. However, David realises he can’t fight it anymore after he finds a Christmas card from Natalie, and goes to her house in ‘the dodgy end of Wandsworth’. He takes her to the nativity that her family are on their way to see, and their budding relationship is eventually exposed when the curtain is raised on the two of them kissing backstage.
The acting was brilliant; Brad Pitt is the only one I really recognised, but Christoph Waltz, in particular, was outstanding – he’s kind of evil and creepy and yet strangely likeable, which is even more scary, in a way. I felt a real connection with the characters too, which I don’t often get in films. Shosanna (or Emmanuelle) was wonderfully feisty and brave, and I’m glad the plot played out the way it did (I’m sad that she died though. She was great).
Having mentioned music in my past two blog posts, I’m suddenly very aware that there isn’t much music on my blog, despite how much I love it, and despite the big part it plays in my life. Music can help me regardless of what mood I’m in: it cheers me up when I’m sad, calms me down when I’m angry, and can sometimes make me a bit hyper when I’m already in a good mood.
With only a week to go until Christmas, I’m finally getting into a Christmas mood, so I’m digging out all my appalling but cute films from the back of the cupboard and watching them again, almost like a kind of tradition.
I was in one of ‘those moods’ the other day – a kind of pathetic, emotional mood – so I decided to watch one of the more pathetic, emotional films on my long, long list of recommended films.
Since it’s nearly Christmas (eight days, just saying), school has become a very, very tiny bit more relaxed – as in, we got to watch a film in German, rather than the usual lessons spent learning the difference between regular and irregular imperfect and perfect tenses. This is undoubtedly a welcome change, but when my German teacher said it was ‘the best war film ever made’, I was expecting something better than this.
One of my pet hates is a film which is what I’d call a ‘dark film’. By this, I mean a film which is hard to follow because of the shadows and lack of light. Sadly, this is one of those films. It doesn’t help that I have to focus on the subtitles at the bottom of the screen too, as this makes it difficult to really follow what’s happening. Combine all this with my lack of knowledge about submarines and seafaring terminology, and it all adds up to, in my opinion, a very boring (and confusing) film.
We decided to do an all girls version, complete with pencil skirts and everything!
Another thing that went particularly well in the project was editing; I certainly 
some louder members of the group were determined to get finished, and ignored some of the quieter group members, who pointed out that in order for it to look right, we’d have to move the camera backwards after each shot, as the characters are supposed to be walking. Our producer mentioned several times that we should be using the dolly, but due to her naturally quiet nature, she was talked over. Therefore, our footage looks incredibly inconsistent, as though we are all walking from exactly the same spot (which we are… but this is not how it should look!).
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