Monday, January 20, 2014

philomena

philomena

I saw "Philomena" last week - in the company of the entire senior citizen population of Stockholm. Or so it seemed - and I can't stop thinking about the movie. It was absolutely heartbreaking, on so many levels.

The horrificness of the religious institutions called the Magdelene laundries isn't news, but the awfulness of it all is ungraspable, every time. Human evil in the name of religion, what women have been put through simply because of their gender over the centuries and still are, all over the world. Madness, pure and utter heartbreaking madness.

Fantastic performances of great actors, Judi Dench and Steve Coogan. Even if Judi Dench was more of a little ol' lady than she should have been at Philomena's age of approximately 65. But I'm thinking that whatever we look like or however we act are tied to all our lifes' experiences, some act and look like little ol' ladies at 20, while others never do and live life to the fullest no matter age. Some are (seemingly) more timid than others, and being bossed around by  a daughter saying 'it's way past your bedtime!' when a 65 year old orders a glass of wine might seem fine (no matter how crazy it sounds). 

I'm so pleased the movie, Judi Dench and other categories have been Oscar nominated. A movie more than well worth seeing. It makes you feel, think and cry.

Perhaps you've already seen it?
What did you think?

2 comments:

Elephant's Child said...

I haven't seen it - but Judy is one of my heroes.

Marie said...

This is on my list of films to see. There really were some awful things done by the church in those days.

We had cases in Australia of "home children", a scheme of forcibly relocating poor children from the United Kingdom to Australia and Canada. And to give it some perspective more than 150,000 children were involved, some as young as three. And it was top secret - the parents were lied to about their kids going to nice UK families, the kids were told that their parents were dead and they were shipped out to orphanages run by various churches. What happened to them there was appalling.

When it came to light in the late 1980s following an investigation by a British social worker who refused to be fobbed off, we were stunned. That the governments of all countries had kept this quiet all this time was unbelievable. And those poor kids (some of whom I knew from the Goodwood Orphange in Adelaide, run by the Mercy Sisters).

If you are interested there is a book called Empty_Cradles and a film from 2010 called Oranges and Sunshine But be warned - the story is harrowing.

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