The Magdalene Sisters (DVD)

The Magdalene Laundries, run by the Catholic Church in Ireland have been written about in the papers in the last decade and there has been a scandal at the way young women have been treated for 150 years. What is even more frightening is that the last of these instuitutions only closed down eight years ago. Young girls who had perhaps slept with boys, or just flirted, or maybe got pregnant, or even those who had learning difficulties were sent off ...
...to have been abused at the hands of these Sisters. The Magdalane Sisters is set in 1964 County Dublin. In the prologue we meet the three main characters; three teenage girls from different backgrounds in Ireland. Margaret Maguire is raped at a family wedding, yet this brings shame on the family and she is sent to the convent. She comes from a poor background, sharing a bed and bedrooms with several of her siblings. Rose gets pregnant and has a baby ...

ClaireG86 11.01.2004 (31.01.2004) · Read full review
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Review of The Magdalene Sisters (DVD)

...Magdalene Sisters" was winner of the Golden Lion Award in Venice last year despite the protestations of the Catholic Church who understandably did not rate it's qualities so highly. The film is set in Ireland (but actually filmed in Scotland) in the 1960s and is based upon true events first brought to light in a 1998 Channel 4 documentary called "Sex in a Cold Climate". The documentary caused uproar when it revealed the horrific truth about the Magdalene ...
...the last one only being closed down in 1996. The Magdalene laundries were institutions run by the Catholic church and were used for the correction of young women who were thought to be a moral danger to themselves or others. The women were made to work in these asylums for no pay in imitation of Mary Magdalene. In these laundries the women were exploited and abused and often served their entire lives paying for their 'sins'. During their existence ...

buzios 08.09.2003 · Read full review
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Review of The Magdalene Sisters (DVD)

For many young women the concept of becoming pregnant is fairly daunting even today, but Peter Mullen's 'Magdalene Sisters' shows that the repercussions are somewhat easier now than during the 1960s, in Ireland. (you'll be shocked when you discover exactly when this practice finished.) In fact, you didn't actually need to have become pregnant to get yourself in 'trouble'... The story begins in 1964 when Margaret (Anne-Marie Duff) attends a wedding. ...
...friend entices her from the main gathering. With the celebrations continuing below, he rapes her. Shocked, she makes her first mistake - telling her father. In a hospital Rose (dorothy duffy) attempts to encourage her mother to look at her newly born son, until her father and a priest shame her into giving up her child for adoption to a 'good Catholic family'. Bernadette (Nora-Jane Noone) is a stunning young girl living in an orphanage. Her only ...

ickkate 29.12.2003 · Read full review
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Review of The Magdalene Sisters (DVD)

...old ladies being burnt at the stake as witches, or what about women being stoned to death or murdered in honour killings in the Muslim wolrd, it is horrenous. Now think about the Catholic Church in Ireland. They ran a system of corrective institutions called the Magdalene Laundries to send temptresses, jezebels, rape victims an unmarried mothers to pay for their wicked sins by hard work. These institutions little known about and talked about were ...
...were the subject of a small independent British film directed by the Scottish director Peter Mullen entitled the Magdalene Sisters. This film released in 2003 detailed he true life experiences of a number of women who were locked away in these cruel institutionis in the 1960s. It is a film like Schindler's List that I was glad I had seen but could not say I enjoyed it due to the subject matter being so harrowing and emotive. I actually saw it in ...

duskmaiden 25.06.2003 (01.12.2006) · Read full review
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Review of The Magdalene Sisters (DVD)

...d'Or, he won 1998, in the film "My name is Joe" where he acted brilliantly a jobless treated alcoholic. It is indeed, that Peter Mullan is not just an actor, but that he is the film director with the potential. But Peter is not just an actor. He is er very good actor. "The Magdalene sisters" has the special appearance of Mullan, acting raving mad father of the young woman, sent viciously to a nun convent in Ireland. For the people who doesn't know ...
...That's why he has got the award for playing treated alcoholic in "My name is Joe". In this film, his Northern England English, the characteristic appearance and look paints perfectly one ordinary, but very likeable Scottish. In "The Magdalene Sisters" Mullan is portraying the miserable life of young and rejected by society women, put "on- treat- and- under- the- care" of Catholic Church and their Magdalene's "Sisters- of- Mercy". "Just as actors ...

barefoot777 28.07.2004 · Read full review
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Review of The Magdalene Sisters (DVD)

...kindness..... I had heard of the Magdelene laundries, but I was not prepared for what I saw in the film. The nuns are in the main horrible-and the nun in charge is truly a monster. She was played very well by Geraldine McEwan...we really hated her in this film! The beginning of the film starts off innocently enough, outlining the lives of three girls from different backgrounds. Margaret, Rose and Bernadette are all the victims of the male dominated ...
...they abandoned their daughters to the laundries because their menfolk had seduced them or even worse, raped them- and then blamed them for leading them on. This film is frighteningly strong and honest enough to portray these incidents- made me very angry on behalf of these girls. How could we do this to our girls? The institution is more than a prison because the girls are stripped of not only their freedom, but their dignity is removed by the nuns ...

ginger59 14.06.2004 · Read full review
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Review of The Magdalene Sisters (DVD)

...Blockbuster movies rental shops at the special hire price - whatever that may be, I don't know! I'd say, at a guess for probably a couple of quid for an overnight hire. Anyway, this film is a true story which follows the lives of three girls. One who was pregnant and had her baby taken from her 10 minutes after having given birth. Her parents were ashamed of the 'bastard' child and they made their daughter give up her baby for adoption. As soon ...
...to a Magdeline home. The second girl, who was raped by her cousin at a family wedding was also sent to the magdeline home where she was deemed a 'whore'. And the third girl who, just because she was very pretty, and was seen as a temptation to boys was sent here too! This film was set in the early sixties in Ireland. It shows, and you will see the horrendous treatment that irish birth mothers got for many many years. These institutes were known ...

GillyPooh78 28.04.2003 (29.04.2003) · Read full review
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Review of The Magdalene Sisters (DVD)

...truly powerful film. As the blurb says “Margaret, Rose and Bernadette arrive together at the Magdalene Laundries, an institution for ‘fallen’ women, where they will atone for their sins through a regimented life of work and prayer”. The opening sequences are wonderfully understated….. a priest playing traditional music at a wedding as Margaret is raped in an upstairs room, the men then closing ranks against her….. ...
...shown, the younger orphans who squabble to brush her hair and wonder if beauty is a sin, and the boys whose admiring glances from the schoolyard railings make her wonder….and Rose, truly contrite for the shame she has brought upon her family, but yearning to keep her beautiful son. Thus the innocent, the uncertain and the guilty arrive at the doors of the Magdalene Laundry. It is an inhuman regime. Rose is denied her very name. Friendship, ...

hiker 11.03.2004 · Read full review
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Review of The Magdalene Sisters (DVD)

This is one of the most harrowing dramas i have ever watched. Set in the 1960's Magdalene Sisters is a film about young women sent to a workhouse for their sins. This is a well known true account of how the nuns from the catholic church in ireland ran these workhouses in the mid 20th century and shockingly some were only closed in the mid 1990's. It is said that over 30,000 women were 'institutionalised' in these homes. Women came from many backgrounds ...
...their families and sometimes spent the rest of their lives in these homes. Women who had babies were most often than not adopted out and never got the chance to see their children again. They were beaten and tortured by nuns who saw them as sinful and disgusting. Their lives mainly revolved around working long hours in laundries, prayers and sleep and were allowed no contact with the outside world. Peter Mullen directed this film in 2002 giving accurate ...

gemrocks1 22.08.2007 · Read full review
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Review of The Magdalene Sisters (DVD)

...that it is one of the best films I have ever seen. I held my breath in parts as knowing it was a true story I could not believe that this ever went on let along as recently as it did. If you liked Angelas Ashes you will absolutely love this film. The directors commentary, which is on the DVD extras is also definately worth a watch/listen The women who are still out there who had any part in making these "laundrys" what they were should be sent ...

aly5on 05.03.2004 · Read full review
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Review of The Magdalene Sisters (DVD)

The story of the Magdeline sisters was a long time coming, a truthfull dark story which was happening on our own doorsteps. The magdeline sisters is the stoly of a convent for 'bad girls' Girls who had brought their Irish catholic famillies into disrespect. The girs, most of whom had given birth out of wedlock, were sent to live in convents where they were treated like slaves by nuns. The move is a great thorn in the side of the Roman Catholic Church. ...

wee_challa 29.11.2005 · Read full review
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Review of The Magdalene Sisters (DVD)