directed by Tim Mielants
Ignorance is the world’s worst enemy. Period. And today, I’d like to recommend a film that covers this topic in a specific way. We move back to the 80s, where we meet a coal merchant, Bill Furlong (Cillian Murphy). He’s a loving father of a big family, who’s very empathic and observant. One of the places he regularly delivers coal to is a convent run by nuns. It’s a place where teenage girls and young women find their shelter. They are also supposed to be taken care of and resocialised, especially since some of them were rejected by their families or left alone. One day, Bill gets to meet one of the girls, who’s absolutely terrified and begs him for help. The man gets confused as it’s difficult to understand her state. Nuns and all other representatives of church seem to have a great reputation in the society, so why would one of their beneficiaries act like something is wrong. That situation stays in Bill’s mind for longer and everything becomes even more complicated when, some time later, the man finds that same girl closed in a freezing room, forced to stay there as some kind of punishment. That’s the moment where Bill can no longer stay silent. The film itself is very slow and without any fireworks if you expect any. It actually reflects the state in which people were living back then. Church was considered a unique institution, highly respected and a real source of pure good. The values and social rules were very much influenced by priests and nuns, so ordinary people weren’t even thinking of standing up to them, because that would lead to ostracism. Unfortunately, as we now know, a lot of religious institutions were hiding drastic and horrible practices, even though they were generally encouraging people to do well in life. Hypocrisy? At its finest… Such places were for example Magdalene asylums in Ireland run by Roman Catholic church. Instead of supporting “fallen women” (as they were calling them), the nuns were literally torturing them. Why? No idea. To punish them? To teach them a lesson? Or to simply use their power over someone much weaker? That’s something I cannot comprehend. I find it disgusting that people who claim to be devoted to god (so according to them the source of love and fairness) are able to act like monsters towards others. Anyway, the fact that church is a shady institution doesn’t surprise me anymore. However, in this film, we also get to see how manipulated society was (and perhaps still is in some places), that even if there are rumours saying “in that place young women are being maltreated”, nobody wants to even try speaking up. We have a perfect example of such ignorance when it comes to ongoing wars in the world. We have the access to the information that there are people dying out there. But as society, we choose to ignore it. One the one hand, I know that an individual can’t change much, so ignorance helps us stay sane in such circumstances. But on the other, I’m ashamed of world authorities, who choose to close their eyes. Perhaps the film itself didn’t knock my socks off, but it made me reflect on the topic of ignorance, and that’s a lesson worth remembering.
My rating: 6/10
S.
I have nothing to watch 