The Magdalene Sisters Film Analysis

Peter Mullan in his award-winning movie, The Magdalene Sisters fictionalizes and reimagines the life stories of four former Magdalene asylum victims based on their testimonies in documentary Sex in a Cold Climate filmed in 2007. The film strongly criticizes the cruelties that took place between the walls of these institutions and the Roman Catholic Church. While genre-wise it is obviously a drama, however, it may easily be interpreted as a horror movie due to numerous elements distinctive of the genre. According to classical film theory the abject imagery is a fundamental piece in horror. The photography of The Magdalene Sisters is following this tendency by utilizing the female bodies, that is of the victims of the asylum, to create raw and realistic images, all the while connecting them to sexual, physical and mental

The inmates standing in a row, stark naked are being gazed upon by the perverted nuns, the fat Sister Clementine and the surprisingly pretty Sister Jude. This instance is showcasing multiple layers of othering and dehumanizing activity. The stripped down women are instructed to run in one place as a post-shower exercise; all the viewer can see is running feet but the shrill laughter of Sister Clementine subtly suggest what this could look like from the knees-up. Awkwardly jiggling breasts, bottoms and fat; “making a spectacle out of themselves” (Russo 12). The absurdity of the situation hightens as the fat sister recovering from her laughter goes on to say this: “There is nothing like exercise before supper. But I must say, some of you could do with cutting down on the potatoes”. Then the sisters continue to further objectify and abjectify these poor women by playing a “game” of comparing or rather ridiculing their bodies focusing on sexually significant parts such as breasts, bottoms and pubic