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

peter-stead-740-486963 I attended this as part of the BFI season. Festivals always give films extra love, I've noticed, and this is certainly a worthy story, about the fallout of war, in particular told through the story of the aftermath of mass rapes at a convent in Poland.That this packs almost no emotional punch is down almost solely to the writing. In this genre, rounded characters who develop and use of moral dilemma are key and both were noticeably absent here. What we are left with is simply a historical reenactment.Mathilde is the French Red Cross worker who comes to the aid of the nuns to help them give birth to the babies that are the product of the rapes. Her bind is to keep this - and therefore the nature of her aid to the nuns - secret. This is where I feel moral dilemma as a device could have been used more, because her work at the red cross is equally as important and humanitarian and this begins to suffer - but the writing never lets you in on the series of personal revelations Mathilde would have gone through toward the realisation that helping the nuns takes precedence for her. You therefore get no sense of a character arc and this is embodied by the curiously vacant performance of Lou de Lâage. However, its really the script which does not help her.The nuns themselves are not really characters, but two different sets of qualities. The older ones are stoic and taciturn and the younger ones are justifiably innocent and scared. You never get to understand who they are and there is a strange lack of religious context. There is the questioning of faith and God's will, of course. But the world of the Bible, its characters and lessons are their whole universe. How do they view what happened to them? Through the prism of Mary Magdalene? Through Jesus? Through the Book of Job? Their philophising seems to come from an authorial, rather than a character, voice. For a film which evokes this world much more clearly, I really recommend Doubt.There is some very sloppy direction. Early on Mathilde is told off during an operation because of a lack of attentiveness. The doctor yanks down his mask to speak to her. How come he can do this? Is the mask not necessary after all? Why wear it in the first place? Failures of detail here really take me out of a scene.The acting is generally very good and there is some beautiful cinematography. But the writing is lazy and in places so is the direction. For me, this was a missed opportunity to tell a compelling story.

brockleyavenue This is a movie that doesn't fight the delicate situation at hand and the beliefs that have been instilled, but works with it, allowing for human nature to take its course and lead down a path with a powerful and positive outcome. It is a wonderful movie, that turns the bleak events of the past, the trial and tribulations that had to be endured, only to see light at the end of the tunnel. The performance/acting is excellent, the pace is what you would expect, and keeps you totally focused on the events of the movie. It's sad to see what war does and the entitlements that man feels he should take. A movie, that is sad, with elements that may upset some, but these are true to events and well worth the watch.

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).