1 hr. & 55 min., color, 2016
Will footnotes from World War II and its immediate aftermath ever cease to turn up – not only to be deposited in the teeming trove of stories that nations keep on file but also to uncover further evidence of that war’s inhumanity as it crossed the boundaries of the countries that were directly involved? Will we ever run out? Not likely! While this French/Polish co-production is a fictional work, it is based upon a postwar situation that I doubt if many of us have ever heard about. I know I never have until now.
We have seen visualizations of Nazi and Japanese cruelty, of the plight of children and families, of the extensive sufferings and oppressions of refugees, far more widespread than even those of our own day – so far! But who knows what another year or two or three will bring about! Stories of horror brought about by the insanity of any and all wars are as numerous as the sand grains on the seashore. I have no doubt that ongoing historical research will continue to yield new material and inspire writers and film makers for generations yet to come. We have not heard the last about the World Wars.
The action in this motion picture takes place in the vicinity of Warsaw in December of 1945, just seven months after formal hostilities with Germany have ceased. The victims portrayed and their sufferings are a most unlikely group, not apt to be printed on page one of any newspaper, but the consequences of their abuse are made painfully immediate in this powerful drama. They are not peasants or members of a hated race or political prisoners; they are Catholic nuns in a local convent. In keeping with their policy of privacy and seclusion from society at large they suffer in silence from a nightmare visited upon them by Russian soldiers those many months previous. But that allegedly sacred seclusion is cracked wide open in the movie’s first scene. They find that they cannot endure out of sight of the world any longer without terrible risk to the lives of many of the women inhabitants.
The Rev. Mother Superior (Agata Kulesza) tells it most plainly: They have suffered plenty under the Germans, deprivations of one sort or another, but they were not prepared for what the supposedly liberating Russians would bring upon them, something far worse. Every last nun in the place was raped by Russian soldiers, not just once but many times while the soldiers billeted themselves on the convent grounds. The rapes all took place during the same month or so of the occupation. Many of them have become pregnant and now as expectant mothers they are coming to term at approximately the same time.
The first sound we hear is a choir of nuns singing their daily prayers. The second sound we hear is a scream that pierces the serene and solemn air, one that curiously no one in the chapel appears to be surprised by; they keep on singing. We soon determine that the scream is a young postulant in labor, having been the entire nine months without medical assistance. At last one of the singers, Maria (Agata Bazak), leaves the place and rushes desperately to a Red Cross hospital not far away to get help.
A French doctor Mathilde Beaulieu, in Poland to serve in that Red Cross unit that has been dispatched from France, played by a French actress named Lou de Laage, is persuaded to take time out to rush to the convent. She does this at some risk to herself, because the doctors are under tight military restrictions that require them to give priority attention to the sick in the hospital where their country has commissioned them to serve. The patients in that hospital have been under their care for many weeks. What Matilde sees in the convent horrifies her, especially when she discovers that the baby the woman in labor is about to deliver is in the breach position. She has to perform the surgery in the presence of other nuns including the Rev. Mother Superior. Probably nothing like this had ever happened at a convent before in recorded history. There is therefore no precedent for how to treat these circumstances without the violation of vows taken. Maria lets the outside world into what is supposed to be an inviolable dwelling, and earns the censure of the Mother.
What follows is a titanic struggle, physical and emotional and spiritual. The previously air tight cloister in which these nuns have been training and learning turns into an environment of scared women, whose faith is severely tested, even that of the Mother to whom they have pledged obedience. They have been trained to regard any exposed flesh from beneath their habits as a betrayal of their commitment to their vows. Naturally Mathilde, who is not a person of faith, only of healing, finds this premise to be inscrutable. One older nun recoils against being asked for her swollen stomach to be examined. She pulls her garments tight around herself and runs off, saying she does not want to be consigned to hell. The nuns have been convinced that God will punish them if they do not endure what needs to be endured, even apparently if it risks the life of an unborn child. What we observe is actually a collision between Medieval religious superstition and 20th century science. Mathilde, young and sensitive and relatively new to her profession, has to suppress her revulsion over the conditions she observes and try in her own inexperienced fashion to prevent a human disaster.
Breaking water and the agony of labor gradually consume everybody’s attention. More births are portrayed in this motion picture than I ever remember seeing in any motion picture before. The disciplines of the nuns and their usual rigors are disrupted – the crying of newborns gasping for life. The Mother finally claims that she has found homes in which the children will be raised. She begins wrapping each infant in a blanket and walking it to its alleged new residence herself.
Maria, who has not been impregnated, turns out to be the strongest of the nuns and finally stands up to her Mother Superior, who maintains that the place will now be in disgrace and subject to scandal. She tells the Mother that the convent was already beset by disgrace and scandal before Mathilde arrived and tries to convince her that the doctor is a gift from heaven.
Though it is controversial, the writing never takes on the cast of a political drama. Maria and Mathilde establish a wholesome rapport, the former becoming a much needed help to the latter, even learning how herself to deliver a baby in the doctor’s absence. This alliance does much to soften the resistance of the nuns to Mathilde, especially after she saves them from further molestation and maybe arrest by letting the phony word out to the Russians that an epidemic has broken out in the building. This places the Rev. Mother in a kind of subordinate position, which is reinforced when some shocking news about her comes to light.
Mathilde is not treated as a supporting character. She is a leading player, not some symbol of enlightenment amid the unenlightened. The writers give her dimension and spend time delving into her heart and mind. She does some meaningful introspection, disclosing dark emotions to her momentary lover (Vincent Macaigne), also a doctor, fighting his own demons of doubt and near despair. They are both professionally skilled but demonstrate a personal vulnerability they would never reveal to their superiors. He himself eventually becomes involved with Mathilde in the healing of the nuns.
Perhaps what I have said thus far gives the impression that this is a stark tragedy, but let me correct that impression. There are a few tragic incidents portrayed, and some very disturbing sights disclosed, even an attempted rape of Mathilde by Russian soldiers, but it is ultimately a story of personal triumph, with a decidedly bright and upbeat conclusion. It weighs many conflicting values but comes out solid in the corner of decency and humanity. We could say that the convent undergoes a positive rebirth of spirit and purpose.
Credit for this amazing and vivid work of cinema goes essentially to a French woman named Anne Fontaine, who did the directing and co-wrote the screenplay with three other persons – Sabrina B. Karine, Pascal Bonitzer, and Alice Vial. Someone has called “The Innocents” a war movie about women, by women and for women. But speaking as a male viewer, I recommend it most highly to all who respect life and those brave enough to be dedicated to maintain it under hostile and forbidding circumstances. You can rent it from Netflix.
To read other entries in my blog, please consult its website: enspiritus.blogspot.com. To learn about me consult on the website the blog entry for August 9, 2013.
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