The Magdalene Sisters Full Movie Youtube
Charise Farag
I was an unmarried girl I'd just turned 27 When they sent me to the sisters For the way men looked at me. --Joni Mitchell, "The Magdalene Laundries" Here is a movie about barbaric practices against women, who were locked up without trial and sentenced to forced, unpaid labor for such crimes as flirting with boys, becoming pregnant out of wedlock, or being raped. These inhuman punishments did not take place in Afghanistan under the Taliban, but in Ireland under the Sisters of Mercy. And they are not ancient history. The Magdalene Laundries flourished through the 1970s and processed some 30,000 victims; the last were closed in 1996.
"The Magdalene Sisters" is a harrowing look at institutional cruelty, perpetrated by the Catholic Church in Ireland, and justified by a perverted hysteria about sex. "I've never been with any lads ever," one girl says, protesting her sentence, "and that's the god's honest truth." A nun replies: "But you'd like to, wouldn't you?" And because she might want to, because she flirted with boys outside the walls of her orphanage, she gets what could amount to a life sentence at slave labor.
This film has been attacked by the Catholic League, but its facts stand up; a series of Irish Times articles on the Internet talk of cash settlements totaling millions of pounds to women who were caught in the Magdalene net. What is inexplicable is that this practice could have existed in our own time, in a Western European nation. The laundries were justified because they saved the souls of their inmates--but what about the souls of those who ran them? Raised in the Catholic Church in America at about the same time, I had nothing but positive experiences. The Dominican Sisters who taught us were dedicated, kind and brilliant teachers, and when I see a film like this I wonder what went wrong in Ireland--or right at St. Mary's Grade School in Champaign-Urbana.
"The Magdalene Sisters" focuses on the true stories of three girls who fell into the net. As the film opens, we see Margaret (Anne-Marie Duff) lured aside by a relative at a family wedding, and raped. When she tells a friend what has happened, the word quickly spreads, and within days it is she, not the rapist, who is punished. Her sentence, like most of the Magdalene sentences, is indefinite, and as she goes to breakfast on her first morning she passes a line of older women who have been held here all their lives.
Two others: Bernadette (Nora-Jane Noone) is the girl who flirted with boys outside her orphanage, and Rose (Dorothy Duffy) is pregnant out of wedlock. She bears her child because abortion would be a sin, only to have it taken from her by the parish priest, who ships her off to a Magdalene institution.
Other inmates include Crispina (Eileen Walsh), whose crime is that she is mentally handicapped and might fall victim to men if not institutionalized. And there is an older prisoner who acts as a snitch to gain favor with the sisters. The nun in charge of this institution is a figure of pure evil named Sister Bridget (Geraldine McEwan), a sadist with a cruel streak of humor, who in one scene presides as new girls are forced to strip so their bodies and the size of their breasts can be compared. This is not fiction; the screenplay, by director Peter Mullan, is based on testimony by Magdalene inmates. McEwan's powerful, scary performance evokes scarcely repressed sadomasochism.
The drama in "The Magdalene Sisters" is not equal to its anger. The film turns, as I suppose it must, into a story of escape attempts. A previously inexperienced girl finds herself making direct carnal offers to a young truck driver, if he will slip her a key to the gate. A priest who violates Christina is paid back with poison ivy in his laundry. There is an escape attempt at the end that belongs more in an action film than in this protest against injustice.
But the closing credits reminds us once again that the Magdalene Laundries existed and did their evil work in God's name. The Church in Ireland has changed almost beyond recognition in recent years, and is now, like the American church, making amends for the behavior of some clergy. And the Irish Times articles report that some Protestant denominations had (and have) similar punishments for sexuality, real or suspected. The movie is not so much an attack on the Catholic Church as on the universal mind-set that allows transgressions beyond all decency, if they are justified by religious hysteria. Even today there are women walled up in solitary confinement in closed rooms in their own homes in the Middle East, punished for crimes no more serious, or trivial, that those of the Magdalene laundresses.
The attraction of seeing a film of a particular genre for example prison, would be that the audience knows what they want from the film, has an expectation and has watched enough of that particular genre to know that they like the prison genre. There are many genres that are influenced by others and some that are hybrid, which means that two genres are combined. The Magdalene Sisters and The Shawshank Repedemption are both films that are prison genres that have a running theme of religion throughout. Another example of a hybrid genre in relation to film would be Romantic Comedies. Romantic films and Comedy films are both separate genres but are fused and is now a very popular genre.
Shawshank Redemption and The Magdalene Sisters are produced to attract the older adult or mature aged teenager because of their content. The two films focus on themes of the struggle for freedom, friendship and the trials and tribulations of being in prison or prison-like environment.
There are discernible similarities between the two films as they are both religion orientated. There is no sympathy towards the prisoners in either films as they both have people who are in a position of power abusing that power and dominating and controlling everything they do.
The usage of voiceovers and narration from Red and Andy occurs throughout The Shawshank Redepmtion which enables the viewers an inside experience of how the characters feel about their situation, which makes you feel sympathy and emotion towards the character. Although voiceovers and narration is not used within The Magdalene Sister the viewer still has a deep understanding of how the women are feeling by giving insights to their emotions and how they react to similar and contrasting situations. This allows the viewer to get to know each character.
The two films are both similar as they are both about people who are going through similar situation with people in a higher position than them being in control of what they do and how they do it. Although the Magdalene sisters is a female orientated film and the Shawshank is male orientated, you still see similar effects on them. Friendship plays a big part in both films as that is the only thing they rely on for a source of happiness. Throughout both films you see the change in behaviour and that they both learn than the nature of freedom comes from within.
I spent a lot of time during Lent reflecting on the Resurrection and, more specifically, on who has the power to tell the story of the Resurrection and who is allowed to be resurrected. I asked myself, "Who is deliberately silenced and cast aside while their public image is tarnished?"
My reflections centered on Mary Magdalene, who not only accompanied Jesus during his ministry, but was also the first disciple announcing the unbelievable news of Jesus' resurrection. In her book Truly Our Sister, St. Joseph Sr. Elizabeth Johnson describes Mary Magdalene as one of the women who was "Jesus' friends and disciples who supported his ministry, witnessed his death and burial, and bore the earth-shattering responsibility of being chief witnesses to his resurrection whether the men believed them or not." Despite this awesome responsibility and the role Mary Magdalene played in our Christian story, she has been continually silenced and cast aside as a prostitute.
During this season, I prayed with parents, children, teachers, medical professionals, and everyone else who has been calling for gun control in the United States after each massacre. On Holy Thursday, I journeyed with the "Tennessee three" as they shouted into the void of the Tennessee state legislature.
Like Mary Magdalene, they were not believed when they said gun control could end the epidemic of gun violence we have endured without a policy change. Instead, the Tennessee three were deliberately silenced by people protecting the interests of the gun lobby instead of the innocent people they were elected to serve. They are modern-day Mary Magdalenes.
I journeyed with members of the nonbinary and transgender communities as pastors and elected leaders attempt to discredit science by banning gender-affirming care, spiritual nourishment, education and employment. In Texas, I watch in horror as parents of transgender children are threatened with child-service investigations as they attempt to obtain gender-affirming care, as children are kicked off sports teams, and as they are denied Eucharist and a spiritual home. In turn, I joined with thousands of allies, including my own religious sisters and pastors, who dared to publicly support the transgender community. They are modern-day Mary Magdalenes.
I found modern-day Mary Magdalenes at our southern border, where they cried out in anguish as a fire at a Ciudad Jurez immigration detention center killed dozens of migrants. They bore witness to communities of migrants who attempted to navigate an asylum app that didn't recognize the Black or dark-brown faces of our siblings seeking asylum. Instead, the story of a "new country free from migrants" took hold on news programs as we criminalized families seeking a new life by risking all to make the harrowing journey to the border. We ignore their fears, and we silence them each time we put them on a plane back to their country of origin and label them as "bad." They are modern-day Mary Magdalenes.