THE MAGDALENE SISTERS

Director: Peter Mullan (consistently working actor, director, writer, no major film direction)
Starring: Anne-Marie Duff, Dorothy Duffy, Geraldine McEwan, Nora-Jane Noone

The Magdalene Sisters is an excellent example of what independent film can really do. It's a low budget story of the Magdalene laundries, of which I was unfamiliar before seeing the film, but which I've researched since. This movie brings to light a form of sanctioned slavery perpetrated by the Catholic church in Ireland for 150 years. Nearly 30,000 young women that Ireland's puritanical society had deemed "immoral" were tossed out by their families to become wards of these sweatshops. They were near slaves to the Church, if not completely so.

The movie focuses on three real-life individuals: one a rape victim, one an unwed mother and one simply a bit of a dirty flirt who were shunted away to toil in the awful conditions of these laundries. The list of penances the girls were forced to perform for their "sins" ranged from enforced silence, to beatings, to even more awful sexual and emotional abuse. All the while the girls were forced to work all day in laundries profitting only the church. The power of this little film really stikes the viewer with the final piece of simple white text on a black screen letting us know that the last of these slave-factories closed only in 1996. It's a powerfully stunning and shameful situation that this fine little film brings to light.

This is a very good film in itself, but as a commentary on a real situation it is quite important.

Standouts: Peter Mullan for writing and directing this important statement.
Blowouts: Not too much too pick on for a low budget independent film.

Grade: A-