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The Magdalene Sisters [VHS]

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"The Magdalene Sisters" is a fact-based account of three young Irish women who were imprisoned in a Magdalene Laundry in Dublin in 1964. The original purpose of the ten Magdalene Laundries that were established in Ireland in the 19th century was to reform prostitutes. Women were imprisoned by the State and Church and expected to do penance for their sins through hard work and prayer. By 1930, instead of being populated by former prostitutes, Ireland's Magdalene Laundries were occupied primarily by unwed mothers whose families had rejected them. An estimated 30,000 Irish women were detained in the Laundries during the 20th century, until the last one closed in 1996, and were used as a slave labor force, working from dawn until dusk to turn a profit for the Order that administered the Laundries.

"The Magdalene Sisters" tells the stories of Margaret (Anne-Marie Duff), who is sent away from her home after being raped at a family wedding, Bernadette (Nora-Jane Noone), whose caretakers at the orphanage where she grew up banish her to the Laundry to prevent her good looks from causing any trouble, and Rose (Dorothy Duffy), who is scorned by her family after bearing a child out of wedlock. These three teenagers arrive at the Magdalene asylum at the same time and together bear its abuses and indignities over the course of years. The three lead actresses give fine performances. Geraldine McEwan and Eileen Walsh give stand-out performances as Sister Bridget, chief administrator of the asylum, and Crispina, a mentally challenged inmate, respectively. The film does portray the Irish Catholic Church in a bad light -at least the small part of it that we see. But the Church fares no worse than the government that supported the imprisonment of women who had committed no crime or, even more appalling, the self-righteous, hideously self-absorbed parents who delivered their children into imprisonment and slavery because they were afraid of what the neighbors would think. "The Magdalene Sisters" presents interesting intertwined stories about a very unfortunate slice of Irish history.

The DVD: This disc's single bonus feature is the inaptly titled 50-minute documentary "Sex in a Cold Climate". This is an original British documentary film which inspired writer/director Peter Mullan to write "The Magdalene Sisters". The documentary features the stories of three women who were confined in Magdalene Laundries in their youth, and one woman who grew up in an orphanage that adjoined one of the Laundries. It's unclear to me whether these women were the basis for the characters in the "The Magdalene Sisters" or not. Their stories are similar enough to those in the movie to make me think so, yet they differ in timing and details. For the feature film, subtitles are available in French and Spanish, and captions are available in English. Dubbing is available in French. Four unavoidable "public service" spots precede the film, narrated by movie stars and aimed at women with anorexia, alcoholism, self-esteem, and spousal abuse problems. What will we have to sit through next?

I just finished watching this movie and I am extremely disturbed. The story is filled with so much hate and so much blatant bigotry that my hands are actually shaking as I sit here and type this. No movie has ever touched me as "The Magdalene Sisters" did.

First, let me just say that all the men in this movie are disgusting, repugnant COWARDS!! The men can do no wrong while the ladies have to sacrifice for no apparent reason. That is terribly unjust.

The Magdalene House is a jail-like home. It's run by pedophile priests that enjoy taking advantage of handicapped ladies and sadistic nuns that get personal pleasure out of abusing the ladies that live there.

The movie revolves around 3 young ladies that were sent to a Magdalene House; each for different reasons. One of the young ladies was raped, another was too pretty, and another had a child out of wedlock. What exactly was their crime that caused them to be locked up for years and years you might be asking? After all, they were being punished and told that they were good-for-nothing sinners! Their crime was: female sexuality! Apparently, the Catholic Church of Ireland found that to be the ultimate crime. And, as a result they punished these poor young ladies mercilessly.

There is only one shining light in this very evil movie. That is at the very end when two of the young ladies escape. They were courageous enough to get out and free themselves of all beatings, hate, and sexual abuse.

Thousands of women more were enslaved in these concentration camps until their pitiful deaths. Words along cannot describe this tragedy.

This movie is a true story which took place in Ireland. Thank you to Peter Mullen for making a movie about this topic.

For much of the 20th century in Ireland, the Roman Catholic Church operated a string of laundries, the Magdalene Asylums, where very young women accused of "moral crimes" were sent
to work and repent of their evil ways in a cathartic vision of cleansing the soul while cleaning the laundry. These so-called "moral crimes" were broadly defined as becoming pregnant, getting
raped or even flirting with boys or being overly attractive and thus committing the sin of vanity.

In the asylum's history, over 30,000 women were incarcerated, endured the Catholic Churches discipline systems and many died there. Often sexually abused and assaulted by priests, sexually humiliated, assaulted, shamed and beaten within an inch of their lives by their masochistic caretakers, the nuns - those "sweet sisters of mercy".

As a shocker, The last of these horrendous Catholic laundries closed in 1996.
Scottish actor-writer-director Peter Mullan sets the story in 1964, the high-water mark for tension between our modern society and old-line Catholicism.

The story centers on three very young women who were surreptitiously marched off to repent and be slaves for life to the Holy Catholic Church and their "pious" service of community.
Margaret (Anne-Marie Duff) is raped by her cousin at a family wedding and both of her parents place her in the "care" of their village priest and ship her off to the Magelene Laundries to avoid that horrible stigma of shameful family embarrassment; Rose (Dorothy Duffy) is an unwed mother forced by her mother, father and Holy Father to give her baby boy up for adoption, placing him in the Catholic orphanage system, and Bernadette (Nora-Jane Noone) is a Catholic orphanage young and beautiful teenaged girl deemed loose just because she is so pretty, fun and talks to boys.
All three are sent to a Magdalene laundry outside Dublin, where conditions would make the dusty prison farm in "Cool Hand Luke" look like a virtual health spa. These young women are worked 12 to 14 hours a day, 364 days a year (except Christmas, God bless) without any pay, viciously beaten for even speaking out of turn and, in one most disturbing scene, trotted around naked and ridiculed by the nuns.

Overseeing the place is Highhanded Sister Bridget, a witch in a wimpole, well played by the British veteran Geraldine MacEwan.

The other inmates of the Holy Catholic Church are a varied lot. The tragic figure of the mentally disabled, sexually assaulted, and committed Crispina played by Eileen Walsh in an earth shattering performance really stands out as the best performance in the cast, in my humble opinion.

The nuns are given some depth by director, Mullan- Sister Bridget is shown as a whirling devilish mean mother superior one moment, but capable of gushing tears at a Christmas Day screening of "The Bells of St. Mary's."

What is truly unbelievable and disquieting in "The Magdalene Sisters" is how the Irish families of the prisoners aided and abetted such cruel treatment of their own flesh and blood.

When one girl, Una, successfully escapes the laundry, she is beaten within an inch of her life and is dragged back by her father (oddly played by the director, Mullan), who verbally and physically abuses Una every step of the way. Una is handed over to Sister Bernadette and the sister shaves all of Una's beautiful hair off of her beaten and bloodied head which was a regular action taken by the nuns.

In Mullan's portrait of institutionalized shame and suffering, and a society's uniquely cruel form of sexual repression, "The Magdalene Sisters" is a hard pill to take, but certainly worth it for its outpouring of overcoming, raw rage and defiance on the screen.

And if the fact-based movie weren't enough to shock, also included is the British documentary "Sex In A Cold Climate" which interviews several Irish women who were imprisioned during the time of the Catholic Church's REIGN OF TERROR! The documentary exposes even more sick, sad and twisted goings on that the movie didn't even touch upon...

Highly Recommended and Happy Pondering!

Although the last of the Magdalene laundries shut down in 1996, their driving spirit is with us today across the globe.

Religious fundamentalism thrives on two core concepts: that those who profess its beliefs have been blessed with an insight into the mind of God that eludes people of different viewpoints; and that all deviation in thinking or action from the proscribed path must be stamped out, with the force of the state -- or with violence -- if necessary.

And the upsurge of this fundamentalism is a global, pan-religion phenomenon in 2004. The Taliban would enforce the subjugation of women. Al-Quaida would reverse the flow of history and create a medieval theocracy across the mideast. Ultra-orthodox Jews in Israel would proscribe people of insufficient racial purity from holding high office. And conservative U.S. Christians would lay claim to tax dollars for their faith-based initiatives, consign the Bill of Rights to the dustbin of history, and ban all relationships between consenting adults not to their liking.

For anyone who thinks the stakes are not high in this struggle, let them watch The Magdalene Sisters. These events happened. They happened at the hands of an ostensibly charitable church sanctioned by a state that delegated its power to judge and punish to religious zealots. Imprisonment without due process. Presumptive guilt. Total conformity in thought and behavior imposed arbitrarily on one person by another. Brutal punishment brought down on the slightest breath of protest or disclosure. A few escaped. Most withered into spiritual nothingness to grow old in an isolated, perpetually gray world of fear and endless slave labor.

The movie lasted two hours. The events it reports lasted lifetimes. This is the scariest movie I have seen in years.

I've watched this movie twice and boy did it leave its impressions.

I went to Catholic school for 13 years (K-12) and am amused to this day how much they worry more about the "evils" of abortion, birth control and sex education than they do about [...] priests, the hierarchy's part in covering up these crimes by transferring the priests and paying off the victims (or simply shooing them away), and this sad, pathetic chapter in their history. Now they're running radio commercials asking people to find it in their hearts to "forgive." Perhaps they'd do better to start apologizing to the many women whose lives were ruined by these horrible places.

The church did, indeed, have too much power for too long and, like all tyrants, misused it. They humiliated and belittled these young women for perceived sins (how it's a sin that your own cousin rapes you or that boys gather around you because you're pretty is beyond me).

The unneccessary tragedy that were these Irish laundries continues to unfold to this day with the graves of these young women being uncovered everyday and more women coming forth to tell their tales of how much they suffered.

I give all the credit in the world to the filmmaker and the distribution company for enduring the threats of the current church heirarchy and making this film so that the plight of these women could finally be told.

Finally, you'd think the folks in charge would have been enlightened enough to shut these slave mills down years back, right?

The last laundry was closed way back in 1996.

The Magdalene Sisters is one of the better movies of the year. It holds within it such emotional girth, such a sympathy with these girls and what they go through in such a society that holds the Catholic belief system as the absolute truth, that by the time you leave the theater, like it or dis-like it, you'll feel drained. Along with a heart-wrenching relentlessness by writer/director Peter Mullan in revealing the details of the nun's cruelty and coldness, there are a number of very good performances here. Geraldine McEwan's Sister Bridget, head Sister of the Magdalene reformatory, is on par with Nurse Ratched for being one of the most frightening of dominating female figures; Eileen Walsh's Crispina/Harriet is possibly the most touching of the lot of imprisoned women and could garner an Oscar nomination; Nora-Jane Noone's Bernadette is a true balancing act between rebellious spirit and trapped creature; and the other players, including Anne-Marrie Duff and Dorothy Duffy add splendid supporting work.

As fellow film connoisseurs know, Ingmar Bergman was renown for most of his films dealing with faith, the loss of it, and/or the absence of God and the pain that seeps through in living in such a world that doesn't question it. While these questions weren't as forward and evident in this film as they were in Bergman's masterpieces, often Mullan subtly brings these questions to light as the film progresses: if God is pounded over and over and over into these girl's heads, that they are here because they need to repent for their "mortal sins" (such as being raped, flirting, having children out of wedlock), and they are subjected to physical, sexual, and mental abuse by those who should be compassionate, life-long devotees to the faith, where is God? This question actually comes to a big head in a scene that at first shows itself to be rather amusing when a priest gets a poison Ivy rash, and then Crispina, who got it from him in the worst way, shouts out over and over YOU'RE NOT A MAN OF GOD, and thus is silenced away to a mental asylum. Indeed, this is the part of the film where the question gets the most light, and it's the most harrowing scene in the movie among others and is one of the most powerful in movies this year.

The only liability is the climatic ending to which is something against a Bergman=esque logic, and while I won't reveal it here, it tends to go to an (appropriate) timing that's akin to Cuckoo's Nest. Personally, I felt the film should have ended with the Bergman logic instead of the Kesey spirit, but that's neither here nor there, since the bulk of the film in and of itself is contains some passionate drama, and to those who see it will not only get an eye-opening view to the old-time (if old-time is up until seven years ago) Catholic ways, but also to the great dangers of control over human life.

This is a necessary and valuable work of art. Not because of any great characters, or acting, or story line or most of the attributes we commonly associate with a great movie; but, like some of Kubrick's greatest work, this film shows in sharp focus the extremities of the human experience in a particular context, in this case the intolerance of a primitive society and it's devastating effects on human lives.

The place is Ireland, the time the early 1960's. Like most primitive societies, the Ireland of this time was a deeply patriarchal society, something we are introduced to very quickly; Margaret, a victim of in-bred viciousness, is the one who takes the rap while her raping cousin is left to return drinking with his buddies. Bernadette is seen flirting with boys at the schoolyard gates, who probably return the next day, oblivious to the fact she is gone. And with Patricia, who has a child out of wedlock, there is no male figure at all, he is completely gone, his presence hinted at only by the infant she is shamed into giving up against every one of her instincts. In all cases, the same basic device is employed; the female is seen as the danger and thus eliminated, while the males continue their lives as before, registering a slight blip if any thing at all. A very clear picture of a society in the grip of an extreme 'jezebel' complex emerges, one where female sexuality is seen as the cause of trouble and promptly extinguished.

So the girls end up in a Magdalene Asylum pretty quickly and what they experience is as effective and brutal a system of elimination as the most stringent communist society, or the most extreme fundamentalism. It is in fact a highly effective combination; the girls are indoctrinated and brainwashed as well as possible, and at the same time are turned into a clockwork laundering factory. The intolerance of the society for female sexuality is turned into an effective money making machine by the very church that fosters that intolerance.

The pace of the movie, after the three girls end up entering the Magdalene Asylum, is unrelentingly grim, and succeeding events serve to build up a portrait of the human spirit slowly being crushed. This is thrown into sharp relief towards the end, when, after Margaret has been retrieved by her brother, both Bernadette and Patricia attempt a daring escape; if it seems a bit implausible, it's almost necessary, otherwise what the viewer has experienced is too dark, too hopeless. The biographies we read of the girls at the very end serve to show how their experiences mark their entire lives. In one case, perhaps the most tragic of all, that of Crispina, it directly leads to her life ending in an insane asylum. How, I will leave that for your viewing.

Watch this movie and learn. It's not really about great acting or directing, and you will not "enjoy" it, but you will gain a vivid insight into the dark, primitive, totalitarian oppression that one of Europe's modern societies has thankfully quickly (yet disturbingly recently) come out from underneath.

By the way, if this seems critical of Ireland, I was born into 1960s Ireland. I know. I also want to be clear that this is not critical of everything Irish, but one aspect, the intolerance of female sexuality in Ireland of that time. Nor is it intended to be critical of the Catholic church in general; there are many societies where catholicism is the main religion, and female sexuality is overtly celebrated and displayed (Brazil, Cuba come to mind, though I should add that I've never actually been there). And let me also add that demonization of the female figure, the 'jezebel complex', is a common theme in many societies; but, it was applied with a particularly totalitarian ruthlessness in 1950s and 60s Ireland, in a way that I have always been slightly baffled by. Kudos to Peter Mullan for a stunningly vivid portrait of it.

Also, Peter Mullan is a complete genius, I urge anyone to check out anything he's ever been remotely involved in; "My Name is Joe", "Raining Stones"... It's often grim and tragic, but I'm hard pressed to think of a better or more sympathetic conveyor of the human experience.

The 20th Century is so full of horrors that one can hardly learn of the Magdalene laundries and react in shock as though one had stumbled upon Auschwitz or the Cambodian killing fields. But that this particular horror affected so many innocent lives (an estimated 30,000), lasted as long as it did (until 1996), and that it was endorsed -- no, that's not strong enough, "created and run"? no, perhaps "perpetrated" is a better word -- by the Catholic Church, under the guise of "rescuing" these young girls from eternal damnation, is especially enraging. This movie captures that horror and shames every priest, nun and churchgoer who ever knew but turned a blind eye.

Excellent performances all around, though Nora-Jane Noone and her beautifully vacant and bitter stare stands out for me. Geraldine McEwan shines as Sister Bridget, the embodiment of cruelty, and Eileen Walsh effectively portrays Crispina's gradual slide into maddness. Anne-Marie Duff and Dorthy Duffy are just as great in more subtle performances.

Though the production values aren't big budget Hollywood, and the actors are neither well known nor glamorous, the storytelling is far superior to what you typically find on the shelves at your local Blockbuster. The lack of glamour adds to the gritty realism. I was left wanting more, but not because the story is incomplete in any way. I just didn't want it to end.

Fortunately, the DVD does offer more in the form of a documentary. This movie has been haunting my thoughts for the last week. I can't get it out of my head. Memorable, sad, enraging. If you enjoy socially-conscious dramas with just a touch of humor and good stories to tell, you'll love this movie. But be careful about letting the children watch; there are some particularly disturbing scenes, frank subject matter, bad language and full-frontal nudity that comes without warning.

It is impossible to forget this movie. Mullan keeps us riveted from the opening scene -- a light-hearted party in Ireland that leads to tragedy for a young woman. Raped by a cousin and betrayed by her family, the woman ends up in the Magdalene Laundries. Under slavelike conditions, women lived out the "cleansing" metaphor while earning money for the religious order who sponsored them. There was no respite: they weren't allowed to talk to one another and they certainly couldn't go to the nuns.

When the film first appeared, some critics jeered at what they called exaggerated scenes of cruelty. Yet former Magdalenes say that, if anything, the film is too kind. The real laundries were even worse. Every scene in this film happened somewhere, often more than once..

Even if you see the movie in theatres, as I did, it's worth watching the DVD to get the extra footage of Sex in a Cold Climate. Interviews with three surviving Magdalenes are especially powerful because the women speak so matter-of-factly about their experiences. There are tears, but no dramatics, as they speak about the effect of their experiences on their subsequent attempts to marry and live a normal life. Traumatized by their past, with no access to contemporary sex therapists, the final irony was their inability to carry out the church's command to create happy, fulfilled marriages that honor both partners.

In both film and film critics, I've seen no discussion of the nuns who created these places. Joni Mitchell's song refers to cold-hearted brides of Christ--but how did they get that way? Some Magdalenes became nuns to get better food and living conditions, since they couldn't escape altogether. And the nuns themselves were uneducated about sex, repressed and undoubtedly frustrated in their own lives.

In the end, one wonders if there isn't some kind of gene that predisposes human beings to lock each other up in the name of ideology. The very ordinariness of the women makes the concept even scarier.

THE MAGDALENE SISTERS packs more information, investigation, and condemnation of the power of the Irish Catholic Church in this two-hour story based on a documentary that appears so cruel that it borders on incredulous. Yet director Peter Mullen has developed this engrossing tale directly from facts as made known in the Irish press: for years the Catholic Church operated the Magdalene Laundry as an asylum for young women who varied in their 'sins' from mere flirting with boys to being raped to giving birth out of wedlock. Though the church wants to be viewed as giving these 'unwanted girls' a haven, the asylums were prison like in nature, in abuse of women, and in forced labor camp life style.

The story focuses on the lives of four young girls who are sent to the Magdalene Laundry in 1964: Rose (Dorothy Duffy), Bernadette (Nora-Jane Noone), and Margaret (Anna-Marie Duff) and the already incarcerated Crispina (Eileen Walsh). Under the brutal guardianship of Sister Bridget (an extraordinary performance by Geraldine McEwan) the girls live through the slowly unveiled life patterns that have existed for years in this dark, dank, horrid place. They bond with the other 'inmates' (the entire spectrum of age), witness the cruelty of the nuns and the degrading behavior of the priests, and focus on the idea of escape.

How all of this plays out is the kaleidoscopic intricacy of the film and all of the varied subplots and particular performances are superbly handled. The startling fact is that we are watching a story based on fact: this asylum was not closed until 1996! Kudos to Peter Mullen for making public some of the atrocities under the guise of religion that still abound around the world. This film is not only instructional, it is a fine piece of cinematography, acting and directing. No wonder it has won so many awards. Grady Harp, November 2004