The "Magdalene" of the title has nothing to do with the famous Cambridge college. Rather, the film concerns what was, until recently, a little-known aspect of recent Irish history, the Magdalene Laundries or Magdalene Asylums. These were Roman Catholic institutions, originally founded in the 19th century, as homes for penitent "fallen women" (that being the contemporary euphemism for prostitutes). By the period when the film is set (the 1960s), their scope had greatly increased, and the great majority of their inmates were no longer former prostitutes. The laundries were used as quasi-penal institutions for any women, especially single mothers, whose sexual conduct offended against strict Catholic notions of morality.
None of the three major characters in this film (all of whom arrive in the laundry on the same day) is a prostitute and only one, Margaret, is an unmarried mother. Rose was placed in the asylum because she was sexually assaulted by a relative and the family found this the best way of covering up the scandal. Bernadette was also placed there by her family, not because she was actually promiscuous but because she was felt to be too flirtatious with the local boys and therefore in "moral danger". Once inside the laundry, the girls are treated more or less as slaves, being forced to work long hours in exchange for starvation rations and accommodation in a Spartan dormitory. The idea is that hard work and suffering will purify the soul and lead to redemption, but the nuns who run the laundry seem more interested in the profits they can make from the girls' unpaid labour than they do in their spiritual welfare.
There were several things that I found frightening about this film. The first is that the things it depicts could have happened at all. More frightening is that fact that the things it depicts happened, not in the remote past or in some totalitarian dictatorship, but in a Western European democracy in the second half of the twentieth century- the last Magdalene Laundry did not close until 1996- with the connivance of the authorities and of much of the population. The Ireland we see is a far cry from the Tourist Board stereotypes of leprechauns, Guinness, folk music and happy-go-lucky people.
Perhaps the most frightening thing of all, however, is the suggestion that many of the inmates accepted their virtual enslavement by the system. The laundries do not form part of the official Irish penal system and their inmates have never been convicted of any crime for which they could lawfully be imprisoned. (When one girl attempts to escape she is dragged back to the laundry not by the police but by her outraged father, who regards her as having brought shame on the family). The nuns have no legal powers to detain these women against their will, and although the doors are kept locked at night, there are no armed guards or barbed wire which could foil a determined attempt to escape. Yet although Rose and Bernadette try to escape their captivity, and Margaret is eventually released by her brother, few of the others are willing to join them, and one even collaborates with the nuns in preventing escape attempts. The inmates are by no means all young- indeed, there are even elderly women who have presumably spent the greater part of their lives in the laundries. The implication is that the inmates are kept in the asylums less by physical coercion than by their own fears of what life will hold for them should they leave, by their sense of rejection by their families and by the guilt feelings which the nuns try to inculcate in them.
There were two scenes which did not work for me. One was where the nuns force the girls to parade naked in front of them. The obvious overtones of this scene came, for me, too close to that old canard, beloved of those who combine religious prejudice with prurience, that nunneries are all hotbeds of lesbianism. The other was where the priest, suffering from a skin irritation, rips all his vestments off while the simple-minded Crispina repeatedly shouts at him "You are not a man of God!", a scene that would have been more at home in a surreal farce than a serious drama.
The standard of acting, however, was uniformly high, even though few of the actresses involved are well-known. If I had to single any out for praise, it would be Nora-Jane No one as Bernadette, Eileen Walsh as the tortured Crispina and Geraldine McEwan as the frighteningly sadistic Sister Bridget. This is in many ways a harrowing film, with its depictions of cruelty and sadism, but it is a film well worth watching. At times I wondered if there was a hidden Unionist agenda- the film does nothing to dispel, and much to confirm, the standard Ulster Protestant view of Eire as a priest-ridden banana republic. Those who regard the film as anti-Catholic, however, should remember that cruelties of this nature are not something exclusive to Ireland, or to the Catholic church, but can occur whenever and wherever religious believers, of whatever creed, allow their faith to be distorted into an instrument of oppression. 7/10
None of the three major characters in this film (all of whom arrive in the laundry on the same day) is a prostitute and only one, Margaret, is an unmarried mother. Rose was placed in the asylum because she was sexually assaulted by a relative and the family found this the best way of covering up the scandal. Bernadette was also placed there by her family, not because she was actually promiscuous but because she was felt to be too flirtatious with the local boys and therefore in "moral danger". Once inside the laundry, the girls are treated more or less as slaves, being forced to work long hours in exchange for starvation rations and accommodation in a Spartan dormitory. The idea is that hard work and suffering will purify the soul and lead to redemption, but the nuns who run the laundry seem more interested in the profits they can make from the girls' unpaid labour than they do in their spiritual welfare.
There were several things that I found frightening about this film. The first is that the things it depicts could have happened at all. More frightening is that fact that the things it depicts happened, not in the remote past or in some totalitarian dictatorship, but in a Western European democracy in the second half of the twentieth century- the last Magdalene Laundry did not close until 1996- with the connivance of the authorities and of much of the population. The Ireland we see is a far cry from the Tourist Board stereotypes of leprechauns, Guinness, folk music and happy-go-lucky people.
Perhaps the most frightening thing of all, however, is the suggestion that many of the inmates accepted their virtual enslavement by the system. The laundries do not form part of the official Irish penal system and their inmates have never been convicted of any crime for which they could lawfully be imprisoned. (When one girl attempts to escape she is dragged back to the laundry not by the police but by her outraged father, who regards her as having brought shame on the family). The nuns have no legal powers to detain these women against their will, and although the doors are kept locked at night, there are no armed guards or barbed wire which could foil a determined attempt to escape. Yet although Rose and Bernadette try to escape their captivity, and Margaret is eventually released by her brother, few of the others are willing to join them, and one even collaborates with the nuns in preventing escape attempts. The inmates are by no means all young- indeed, there are even elderly women who have presumably spent the greater part of their lives in the laundries. The implication is that the inmates are kept in the asylums less by physical coercion than by their own fears of what life will hold for them should they leave, by their sense of rejection by their families and by the guilt feelings which the nuns try to inculcate in them.
There were two scenes which did not work for me. One was where the nuns force the girls to parade naked in front of them. The obvious overtones of this scene came, for me, too close to that old canard, beloved of those who combine religious prejudice with prurience, that nunneries are all hotbeds of lesbianism. The other was where the priest, suffering from a skin irritation, rips all his vestments off while the simple-minded Crispina repeatedly shouts at him "You are not a man of God!", a scene that would have been more at home in a surreal farce than a serious drama.
The standard of acting, however, was uniformly high, even though few of the actresses involved are well-known. If I had to single any out for praise, it would be Nora-Jane No one as Bernadette, Eileen Walsh as the tortured Crispina and Geraldine McEwan as the frighteningly sadistic Sister Bridget. This is in many ways a harrowing film, with its depictions of cruelty and sadism, but it is a film well worth watching. At times I wondered if there was a hidden Unionist agenda- the film does nothing to dispel, and much to confirm, the standard Ulster Protestant view of Eire as a priest-ridden banana republic. Those who regard the film as anti-Catholic, however, should remember that cruelties of this nature are not something exclusive to Ireland, or to the Catholic church, but can occur whenever and wherever religious believers, of whatever creed, allow their faith to be distorted into an instrument of oppression. 7/10