Mary Kenny“The director… transmits the fragility of faith as well as its strengths, and a genuinely powerful sense of sisterhood emerges…”, writes Mary Kenny
I had heard that the film The Innocents was compelling, but when it was to be screened at an art cinema recently, I wasn’t sure if I was in a mood for a mournful story in the run-up to a festive Christmas season.
But I made the effort, and I am so glad that I did, because it is probably the best film I saw this year, or perhaps any year in recent times. Yes, it is a harrowing narrative, involving the utterly brutal rape of Polish Benedictine nuns by marauding Soviet troops in 1945 (a common enough occurrence: more than a million German women were raped in the wake of WWII).
Anne Fontaine’s movie, without showing you the actual event, fully transmits the horror of the rapes, as well as the sense of shame and dishonour which follow, for women, and perhaps especially for nuns who took their vows as consecrated virgins very seriously.
Seven of their number become pregnant as a result (and one nun was infected with syphilis). A French woman doctor (played by the superb Lou de Laage) is persuaded by one young sister to help with the births, which are a poignant mixture of pain, vulnerability, and, finally, tenderness.
Tragedy
There is tragedy too, as the Abbess handles the situation wrongly, and tragically, yet within her own lights, with good intention. But there’s an ingenious and redemptive ending, too.
It is based on the true autobiography by the doctor, Madeleine Paulic (renamed Mathilde Beaulieu in the movie).
The director, Anne Fontaine, lived in a convent for some while to get a sense of empathy and understanding of the life of nuns. She transmits the fragility of faith as well as its strengths, and a genuinely powerful sense of sisterhood emerges, as well as a triumph of maternity. Despite the dreadful ordeal of these babies’ conception, the infants come to be loved.
The movie is available on a DVD in France, so it must be possible to obtain it also with subtitles (it’s in French, Polish, and some Russian).
Wherever and whenever it’s possible to catch it, it’s worth almost any effort to do so.
Upholding the rule of law
The rule of law is a vital component of a functioning democracy, for sure. But sometimes, to be effective, the rule of law also requires the rule of morality.
A Pakistani shopkeeper who has a small local store in Dublin’s Parnell Street rang into the Joe Duffy’s Liveline last Monday, and it was upsetting to hear his account of the way in which local youngsters trash his shop, call him racist and abusive names, and steal his produce.
Behaviour
Sheikh, as he was named by Joe, said that he had been to the gardaí several times, but they felt they were unable to restrain or prevent this horrible behaviour.
As Joe said – what about the parents? Don’t they teach these lads that it is morally wrong to steal, to prevent an honest trader from earning his living, and to offer gratuitous insults to a man who is living legally in this country? It will not do, and it should be addressed.
The passing of A.A. Gill
After the London TV and restaurant critic A.A. Gill died of a swift lung cancer, I remembered that I had done a BBC radio programme with him some years ago.
Sarcasm and invective were his stock in trade, and he duly treated me to a humiliating put-down on air. I’m not easily offended, and if you stand up on your hind legs in public, you have to expect a little flak and take it sportingly. And yet, there must have been a tiny area of my sub-conscious where it rankled.
There’s a witty way of squashing an opponent in debate without being personal, but Adrian Gill would sometimes go for the personal.
However, the episode also made me ask myself if I, too, had perhaps been personally unkind or wounding to an opponent in public discourse at some moment I don’t now remember? And perhaps when I depart this world, they too will bring this to mind? A pause for thought, indeed.
A.A. Gill was a well-connected London celebrity: Jeremy Clarkson was his best friend, and his ex-wife, Amber Rudd, is now the British Home Secretary and a power in the land.
He wrote about being a recovered alcoholic, and he became an accomplished writer despite being dyslexic. I am indeed sorry that he died at the age of 62, and I will banish from my mind and memory any petty recollection of his barbs.
But maybe the suggestion that we don’t speak ill of the dead is all about bringing closure to any lingering resentments.
It surprised me, also, to learn that Adrian Gill was, latterly, a church-goer, in the low-church Protestant tradition of his Scottish heritage.