SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

Dotbankey A lot of fun.

ChanFamous I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

Logan By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

ewleeds Close your eyes and think about the film Wuthering Heights, try to remember Olivier as Heathcliffe, the Yorkshire Moors swept with rain, fog and snow, and the forbidding house whose young master bullied Heathcliffe away and add Cathy's great performance. This film "The Innocents" captures the Spirit of Wuthering Heights in a post wartime Polish Monastery setting, this film portrays the liberation of Poland from the Nazis, who were supplanted by the vodka, vulgar and volva Russians, who raped the Nuns in this monastery causing several to become pregnant and bitterly ashamed of what had occurred, so much so that they shunned outside help, hid behind closed doors and walls, surrounded by the legacy of a wartime Poland ( Polish saying: Lifes bitter lessons I recall, I seem to remember them all) Aid arrives in the form of a French Doctor working locally for the French Red Cross, who solves their pressing problems. The Sound of Music this film ain't, its storyline is more powerful, more moving and another triumph for the French Film industry. A great film, a wonderful moving film, and a lesson in film making to all.

blue-flower-177 An amazing performance, music and cinematography! The film is very deep, absolutely intense emotional experience.

Bob An Initially I gave this film a rating ten, but now I think it is worth nine. Nevertheless, the film is very good.What I liked the best is the setting and the mood of the film. It is quite dark, quite cold ( set in the winter which somehow give something chilly to the already chilly and horrible story) and quite claustophobic ( if I may say that - since the most of the film is done inside a monastery and rooms/cells inside it).The story is gripping and powerful. You can not really stay 'untouched' by the tragedies that the sisters have undergone. And although the scenes were not shown when it happened to them - the scene where it almost happened to the nurse was enough to get the glimpse of what must have been like.The actors were all great - sisters and the nurse especially. I had a bit of a trouble to 'get into' the main doctor's character. I understand French and his way of speaking and making sentences was quite quite strange. But I guess it is meant to be like that.I also liked it was a mix of Polish and French. I know French and Polish is similar in some ways to Serbian so it was also nice to compare some words.I do recommend this film. Though must say that winter time would be more suitable for watching it ( to really get into the atmosphere).

maurice yacowar Anne Fontaine's The Innocents packs such an emotional wallop that you don't realize how many philosophical concerns can be unpacked in it.Medical assistant Mathilde moves between two worlds that can be read as opposing arenas of human service. In the field hospital she helps Jewish doctor Samuel treat survivors in 1945 Poland. That grisly physical world contrasts to the spiritual arena of the convent, where she is increasingly involved in serving the nuns of a meditational order. Several nuns were impregnated in three days of rape by Russian soldiers. When the nuns refuse her treatment they serve their literal commitment to a chastity in the face of their rape and pregnancy. Only in stages do they admit Mathilde to help one pregnant outcast, then for the nuns. Finally they have to admit the male doctor too — and he a Jew at that. The nuns strive to sustain their religious commands in the face of the profanity they have suffered. Reality doesn't allow for such a delusion of perfection. To preserve the convent's secret and protect the nuns from their dubious shame the Mother Superior has been abandoning the babies — with the pretence of leaving them at the foot of a cross in a snowy field, "for Providence" to protect them.As the soldiers have given the Mother Superior syphilis, she is physically poisoned as well as in her callous treatment of the innocent babies. But she is not an evil character. She earns respect when she admits she accepted her own damnation in order to save the convent and the nuns in her charge. She as much as the sacrificed babies is the victim of a religiosity that would sacrifice innocent lives to preserve itself. In that light she evokes the Vatican's collaboration with the Nazis and the failure to defend the Jews. Mother Superior is directly responsible for the one nun's suicide, in despair at her loss of her baby and her superior's conduct. As the nuns always refer to their boss as Mother this title suggests alternative values in maternity. By marrying Jesus nuns avoid secular marriage and its offspring. It takes the Russian soldiers' rapes to confront the nuns with the challenging experience of childbearing and motherhood. Their experience and the Mother Superior's callous response to it make the Mother Superior a false mother, a Mother Inferior. She abuses and betrays both classes of "innocents," the virgin nuns and the newborn babies. Mathilde solves the convent's problem by rejecting the church's imposition of secrecy, the convent's concerted attempt to close itself off from the world — as the heavy gate scenes impose—in favour of letting in the world and addressing its human needs. Mathilde suggests the convent take in the gaggle of street orphans and care for them. Then they can raise their babies among them. They hide their secret in proper public works instead of in shame. Thus Mathilde serves both the spiritual and the secular orders by valuing human needs over old dictates. Mathilde is herself briefly attracted to the convent life when she retreats there from her own near-rape by Russian soldiers. Their refuge is understandably appealing. She is also drawn to the beauty and serenity of their singing and the peace of their daily lives. All they do is maintain themselves, pray and sing. That's the reward of their faith. After the rape attempt Mathilde finds in the convent a welcome security. She can feel like a child again, secure in her father's protective grasp — until the dangers of reality and adulthood intrude. The nuns have felt that unnaturally prolonged security too — until the Russians' orgy. Their babies can be a reminder of their shame or — as Mathilde delivers them — a realization of an emotional life and commitment from which nuns are normally excluded. Here that's the superior motherhood.Of course that reality will continue to intrude. The film stops in 1945. Ahead for the Poles lies the Russian occupation, the repression of religion, the political threat to the personal and to the national soul. Despite the heart-warming family photo at the end, the film eschews a sentimental conclusion. One nun flees both the convent and motherhood. The Mother Superior's response to the womens' suffering and the very question of their God's allowing their abuse have cost her her calling. She abandon both callings, mother and nun, to find a new life in the world.