2016 ‘Les Innocentes’ Directed by Anne Fontaine
Poland, 1945. Mathilde, a young French Red Cross doctor, is on a mission to help the war survivors. When a nun seeks for her help, she is brought to a convent where several pregnant sisters are hiding, unable to reconcile their faith with their pregnancy. Mathilde becomes their only hope.
Lou de Laâge Agata Buzek Agata Kulesza Vincent Macaigne Joanna Kulig Eliza Rycembel Katarzyna Dąbrowska Anna Próchniak Helena Sujecka Mira Maludzińska Dorota Kuduk Klara Bielawka Pascal Elso Thomas Coumans Leon Latan-Paszek Joanna Fertacz Zacharjasz Muszyński Mariusz Jakus Tomasz Sobczak Sasza Reznikow Denys Ivenov Paweł Janys Aliaksandr Malchanau Otar Saralidze Artur Janusiak Helena Norowicz Karolina Zieleń Ewa Trzewicarz Małgorzata Paprocka Show All…
Agnus Dei, Innocent, Agnus Dei - As Inocentes, 아뉴스 데이, Nevainīgās, Agnus Dei – Die Unschuldigen
War and historical adventure Faith and religion Politics and human rights nazi, war, wwii, hitler or jewish war, soldiers, combat, fought or military propaganda, historical, war, political or historic religion, church, faith, beliefs or spiritual political, democracy, documentary, president or propaganda Show All…
Name one movie that is
a) directed by a woman,
b) filmed by a woman,
c) about women, and
d) deeply concerned with matters of faith.
I can think of many films directed by men, and focusing on men, that rigorously wrestle with questions about God and the problem of evil. But The Innocents is a remarkably rare event.
In every time and place of war, there are two guarantees: death and rape. Set in a Polish convent near the end of WWII, this powerful exploration of a nearly forgotten but presumably often occurrence makes that point unequivocally. After the nuns were subjected to sexual abuse by Soviet soldiers, several of them are left with child. To avoid shame or being ostracized, death sentences for the time and place, the Mother of the convent and a French Red Cross medic take very different steps to ensure survival for the women. Aside from it being beautifully shot, the film brings up complex religious and ethical themes. The intersection of the need to survive with the struggle for perceived piety are…
a movie by women and about the horrors lived by women. spectacularly real and truly a masterpiece.
"Faith is twenty-four hours of doubt and one minute of hope."
Women Film Editors #92: Annette Dutertre
Out of darkness, a shred of light emerges.
At first the brutal winter of December 1945 appears unforgiving and unending for a convent of Polish Catholic nuns (Agata Kulesza, Agata Buzek, Eliza Rycembel, Joanna Kulig, Anna Próchniak, Helena Sujecka, etc.) isolated in the countryside. They suffered unspeakable traumas at the hands of the Soviet army; now, as pregnancies approach delivery, these young girls and women must seek medical expertise from the outside world in the form of a French Red Cross doctor (Lou de Laâge) - an atheist raised by a Communist family - and her Jewish coworker/lover (Vincent Macaigne), both of whom…
Desoladora. Consigue con su honestidad, incluso bajo un velo de sobriedad y secretismo, recordarnos lo doloroso de ser mujer, lo exigente de la institución eclesiástica y lo cruel del mundo.
Las performances son soberbias y aunque su austeridad en el retrato de las emociones ha sido criticado, me parece acertado como reflejo del despoje de explosiones sentimentales de las víctimas no sólo de la violencia, el machismo y la guerra sino en este caso también de la fe.
La ambientación resulta, además, maravillosa.
The Innocents is an impressive drama that starts out like a suffocating scream before eventually releasing restorative tears. It is set in Poland in the immediate aftermath of WWII. Mathilde (Lou de Laâge) is a doctor with the Red Cross helping clean up the mess of the war. A nun slips out of the local convent and enters the medical camp and pleads with Mathilde to come back with her to help a fellow nun who she says will otherwise die. Reluctantly Mathilde agrees and upon arrival is shocked to find the distressed nun suffering a complicated labour. But she is not the only one who is pregnant, however the sisters are unwilling to reveal the horrifying reasons for their…
Easily soars to the top of my "best of" list for this year. Thematically rich and compelling from the very first scene. One of the best shot films I've seen this year. Having a female director behind the camera is a game changer here, helping to enrich the material in a really important way.
51/100
A.V. Club review. I reflexively cringe at "based on a true story" (or the equivalent), as nine times out of ten what follows is shallow incredulousness, boiling down to "So that happened!" This is a perfect example.
