Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
His name was Robert Paulsen. And he reviewed THE MAGDALENE SISTERS. Quick note before we get to it, though... although Peter Mullan was inspired by actual events, he's said before that this is a highly fictionalized account. This is not, by strictest definitions, a true story. Anyway... here's Bitch-Tits Bob to clue you in:
Peter Mullan’s The Magdalene Sisters is unlike any film I’ve seen before. Beware, this is not the kind of fluff that drifts in and out of multiplexes every week, seen and then forgotten. Indeed, it is amongst the least enjoyable films I have ever seen and its mark is indelible. I urge you to go and see it.
The Magdalene Sisters follows the true stories of three girls – Margaret (Anne-Marie Duff), Bernadette (Nora-Jane Noone) and Rose (Dorothy Duffy) - sent to The Magdalene asylum in Dublin in the 60s. In the days when Ireland was a theocracy, these Asylums were set up by the Catholic Church and run by the Sisters of Mercy (a misnomer of the grandest proportions). Their job was to take in way-ward female orphans or women who had children out of wedlock, to work in their laundrettes 364 days a year, unpaid, half-starved and abused until they had ‘repented’ sufficiently.
Shot with a raw naturalism, the film’s humanity beats, at times desperately, under the grainy celluloid. It doesn’t take Mullan long to give us heavy drama. The opening scenes offer, each in turn, the back-stories for the three girls who end up in the Dublin asylum. They’re all tales of innocence and injustice which make what follows all the more horrific. Mullan begins with a quintessential Irish scene – a jubilant honeymoon hooley, with dancing, singing and drinking. It’s the kind of scene that will be familiar to anyone who has a Gaelic grandparent or two tucked away – for those that haven’t, think the lower deck shindig in Titanic, but more fun. Mullan puts you right there, at the party, dancing a jig and crooning a guinness-fuelled folk tune with all the other paddies. But then, out of the crowds, Margaret Maquire is plucked, lured away from the confusion of the dance-floor by her cousin who proceeds to rape her in the locker room above the party. When her family finds out, she is sent to work for the Magdalene Sisters – as penance for her ‘sins’.
From such horrendous acts of injustice spring many more. The nuns are just so despicable, portrayed as money-grabbing sadists, who beat the girls and deride them until desperate escape or suicide are the only options. Repentance is guided by the asylum priest, Father Fitzroy, who delivers Mass when only moments before we have seen him sexually abusing one of the prisoners. What makes it all the more shocking is that they don’t seem to be aware that what they are doing is wrong, rather they think they’re saving the souls of their prisoners, as do the families that sent them there. They take as a given that God is on their side and justify all the atrocities with that maxim. Above the beds in the dormitory where the girls sleep is emblazoned ‘God Is Just’. Perhaps so, but it is increasingly clear that the Magadelene Sisters are not. In fact, Mullan’s camera catalogues so many repellant images of human indignities that one is at times left reeling in disbelief. As a result, the narrative occasionally seems heavy-handed and one wonders whether subtlety may have served better than in-your-face explication. For example, the juxtaposition of cash and the crucifix in Sister Bridgets office – explicitly symbolic of church corruption, seems a tad blatant. Having said that, this is Mullan’s method and it is hard to question its effectiveness. The images he presents his audience with are clear and powerful and it is apparent that Mullan, who is best known for his acting, has used his dramatic sensibilities to seduce compelling performances from his cast.
Watching this, the winner of the Golden Lion (Best Picture) at last year’s Venice Film Festival, it is unsurprising, yet still unfortunate that it has been denounced by the Vatican for spreading anti-Catholic lies. At times, one is inclined to ask whether the truth is sacrificed for spectacle, but perhaps this is just a natural human response (let alone a Catholic response). Indeed, the performances are so convincing – in particular Anne-Marie Duff as Margaret and Geraldine McEwan as the detestable Sister Bridget – that it is difficult to accept that these things actually happened; that human beings, further ‘People of God’, are capable of such evil when placed in a corrupting system. It’s difficult, but necessary. The film is not simply a polemic against the Catholic Church, it is an attack on human nature – a manifesto of its darker side. You need to see it.
Thanks, man. Two reviews today. You got me beat.
"Moriarty" out.
