Customer Reviews:
Unbelievible but True.......2008-01-26
I thought that this sort of barbarism, ended in Victorian/Edwardian times. Who would beleive that treatment of this kind was still going on in mid Twentieth Century Ireland.
This film has eventually brought the Catholic Regime ( for want of a better term )into the open and quite rightly so!
Brilliantly produced and some great performances with the acting makes this film a MUST to see, if you need convincing of what went on in Ireland during this period, from God knows when to 1996.
I saw this when it was first released, but have decided to add it to my collection of Historical Drama, as this is surely drama at its best.
I would have give it more stars such as 10 and -5 stars for the Catholic Church, for allowing this awful treatment to be kept locked away from society for so many years.
Mind blowing.......2007-11-22
This film is harrowing to watch. The story of three girls sent to a Magdalen laundry, one for being raped by her cousin(where were the gardai?), one for being a normal filrty teenager,and one a young unmarried mother. These laundries were run by the sisters of mercy, yet they had none. Geraldine Mc ewan is brilliant as the evil twisted mother superior, because she says everything in such a quiet way. The mental and physical abuse that was inflicted on these women was horrific.One of the actress who played a nun was a former nun, who worked in a laundry, and she could verify the events in the film. The acting is superb. This is based on true accounts of what happened to young irish girls in the 1950s, 60s 70s and even the 1980s. The very word magdalen home struck terror in to irish girls. This is not how Eamon De Valera would have wanted Ireland portrayed, his view was of maidens dancing at the cross roads. Girls in Ireland in the 50s and 60s had no access to advice on family planning or contraceptives, the clergy held sway. the Archbishop of Dublin had the problem pages torn out of womens magazines, so if a girl "got in to trouble" she usually had no where to turn unless her parents were liberal, until it was too late and they were sent off to the maggies. What is telling about this film is that the men got away with it, from the rapist cousin, to the maggies priest(although the girls got their revenge on him).
A masterpiece against Christian anti-women fundamentalism.......2007-09-11
Faust's Gretchen, Irish Catholic style. The girl is deprived of her child and sent to some nunnery where she is going to be a prisoner and a working slave for the comfort of the nuns, with no hope to get out, except maybe if a younger male member of the family accepts to come and retrieve her with the benediction of his local priest, or if they escape and become more or less respectable if an accepted member of the society accepts to take her under his (very doubtful if he wants to keep his reputation) or her protection. Any rebellion will be dealt with physical and corporeal punishment, and for the most serious cases that would transpire outside, the girl will be locked up in some mental institution to die there under medical surveillance, is that care? Period. The point is that we are speaking of Ireland in the 1960s-1980s. They will say it is catholic, so it does not concern the countries where catholicism does not have any dominant power any more. But think of Poland and the permanent and regressive "debate" there since the end of communism about abortion. Then they will say it is marginal, only two or three countries in the world. Is it so? Is sexual freedom totally accepted for women, and that implies the women have the right to sexually do what they want with their bodies? But think of other sexual groups and how they are victimized in some of our countries, even France, Great Britain and the USA where a gay pride covers up a lot of discrimination. The film thus is extremely disturbing and frightening, especially since it is based on entirely true cases and the total figure of that victimization of women (one raped, the other one who only smiled at boys with a railing between them, and the third one pregnant and giving birth to a child) is several tens of thousands. A film that should be shown and discussed in all its details in all schools in our countries with kids between 14 and 16. Think of the girl who was burned to death by her brother because she was too friendly, according to the boy, with other boys, and that in France just a few years ago. One junior minister in our government is a founding "mother" of a movement called "Neither whores nor slaves" that was created just after this event. A must on our pedagogical agenda.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines
The horror of the Magdalene Sisters must never be forgotten.......2007-08-25
THE STORY IS SICK, SAD AND POWERFUL ON SO MANY LEVELS AND ALTHOUGH HORRIFIC, DOES NOT COME CLOSE TO THE HORRORS THAT WENT ON INSIDE OF THE LAUNDRIES. MY GREAT AUNT WAS PUT INTO ONE AT 13 YEARS FOR BEING TOO PRETTY AND THEREFORE LIGHTLY TO LEAD GOOD BOYS ASTRAY, NOW AT 78 YEARS OLD, SHE STILL SUFFERS.
May Your God Go With You........2007-08-20
Based on a true story, "The Magdalene Sisters," with God and the State on their side is a sinister and disturbing story about a factory of humane misery hiding behind respectability and Religion.
Customer Reviews:
Unbelievible but True.......2008-01-26
I thought that this sort of barbarism, ended in Victorian/Edwardian times. Who would beleive that treatment of this kind was still going on in mid Twentieth Century Ireland.
This film has eventually brought the Catholic Regime ( for want of a better term )into the open and quite rightly so!
Brilliantly produced and some great performances with the acting makes this film a MUST to see, if you need convincing of what went on in Ireland during this period, from God knows when to 1996.
I saw this when it was first released, but have decided to add it to my collection of Historical Drama, as this is surely drama at its best.
I would have give it more stars such as 10 and -5 stars for the Catholic Church, for allowing this awful treatment to be kept locked away from society for so many years.
Mind blowing.......2007-11-22
This film is harrowing to watch. The story of three girls sent to a Magdalen laundry, one for being raped by her cousin(where were the gardai?), one for being a normal filrty teenager,and one a young unmarried mother. These laundries were run by the sisters of mercy, yet they had none. Geraldine Mc ewan is brilliant as the evil twisted mother superior, because she says everything in such a quiet way. The mental and physical abuse that was inflicted on these women was horrific.One of the actress who played a nun was a former nun, who worked in a laundry, and she could verify the events in the film. The acting is superb. This is based on true accounts of what happened to young irish girls in the 1950s, 60s 70s and even the 1980s. The very word magdalen home struck terror in to irish girls. This is not how Eamon De Valera would have wanted Ireland portrayed, his view was of maidens dancing at the cross roads. Girls in Ireland in the 50s and 60s had no access to advice on family planning or contraceptives, the clergy held sway. the Archbishop of Dublin had the problem pages torn out of womens magazines, so if a girl "got in to trouble" she usually had no where to turn unless her parents were liberal, until it was too late and they were sent off to the maggies. What is telling about this film is that the men got away with it, from the rapist cousin, to the maggies priest(although the girls got their revenge on him).
A masterpiece against Christian anti-women fundamentalism.......2007-09-11
Faust's Gretchen, Irish Catholic style. The girl is deprived of her child and sent to some nunnery where she is going to be a prisoner and a working slave for the comfort of the nuns, with no hope to get out, except maybe if a younger male member of the family accepts to come and retrieve her with the benediction of his local priest, or if they escape and become more or less respectable if an accepted member of the society accepts to take her under his (very doubtful if he wants to keep his reputation) or her protection. Any rebellion will be dealt with physical and corporeal punishment, and for the most serious cases that would transpire outside, the girl will be locked up in some mental institution to die there under medical surveillance, is that care? Period. The point is that we are speaking of Ireland in the 1960s-1980s. They will say it is catholic, so it does not concern the countries where catholicism does not have any dominant power any more. But think of Poland and the permanent and regressive "debate" there since the end of communism about abortion. Then they will say it is marginal, only two or three countries in the world. Is it so? Is sexual freedom totally accepted for women, and that implies the women have the right to sexually do what they want with their bodies? But think of other sexual groups and how they are victimized in some of our countries, even France, Great Britain and the USA where a gay pride covers up a lot of discrimination. The film thus is extremely disturbing and frightening, especially since it is based on entirely true cases and the total figure of that victimization of women (one raped, the other one who only smiled at boys with a railing between them, and the third one pregnant and giving birth to a child) is several tens of thousands. A film that should be shown and discussed in all its details in all schools in our countries with kids between 14 and 16. Think of the girl who was burned to death by her brother because she was too friendly, according to the boy, with other boys, and that in France just a few years ago. One junior minister in our government is a founding "mother" of a movement called "Neither whores nor slaves" that was created just after this event. A must on our pedagogical agenda.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines
The horror of the Magdalene Sisters must never be forgotten.......2007-08-25
THE STORY IS SICK, SAD AND POWERFUL ON SO MANY LEVELS AND ALTHOUGH HORRIFIC, DOES NOT COME CLOSE TO THE HORRORS THAT WENT ON INSIDE OF THE LAUNDRIES. MY GREAT AUNT WAS PUT INTO ONE AT 13 YEARS FOR BEING TOO PRETTY AND THEREFORE LIGHTLY TO LEAD GOOD BOYS ASTRAY, NOW AT 78 YEARS OLD, SHE STILL SUFFERS.
May Your God Go With You........2007-08-20
Based on a true story, "The Magdalene Sisters," with God and the State on their side is a sinister and disturbing story about a factory of humane misery hiding behind respectability and Religion.
UK DVD:
- The Mill On The Floss [1996]
- The Other Boleyn Girl
- The Outsiders [1983] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
- The Sea Inside [2005]
- The Truman Show [Special Collector's Edition]
- The Unit - Series 2 - Complete [2006]
- To Kill A Mockingbird (2 Disc Special Edition)
- Twin Peaks: Complete Season 1 [1990]
- Waterloo [1970]
- Waterloo Road : Complete BBC Series 1 [2006]
UK DVD List
UK DVD
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Kathy's Story: A Childhood Hell Inside the Magdalen Laundries
Suffer the Little Children: The Inside Story of Ireland's Industrial Schools
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Veronica Guerin [2003]
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Angela's Ashes [2000]
Freedom of Angels: Surviving Goldenbridge Orphanage
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