Review of The Magdalene Sisters (2002) by Paul W — 14 Jan 2012

The story of Irelands Magdalene asylums is anti-guilt, anti-establishment, justly feminist. Exploring all that is bad about catholicism (and in fact pretty much any totalitarian.

Regime) - forced guilt, arrogant sense of privelege in the hierarchies, dehumanisation and emotional blackmail - Peter Mullan is not pulling any punches in his expose. It is not only the church hierachy who are fingered, all the girls families have utterly abandaned them, and the film is equally damning of the entire communities whom must have turned a blind eye for decades to let these organisations persist. The on-screen struggle between 'inmates' and 'guards' is as equally well rendered as in other great anti-establishment imprisonment dramas like "One Flew over the Cuckoos Nest" or "Shawshank Redemption", but without the lighter moments present in both those movies - don't expect a beer on the rooftop scene here... If Mullan was trying to make me angry, he succeeded - if it wasnt so late I'd be running out the door to find a nun to kick.