Keswick Film Club - The Innocents

Synopsis

It is 1945, World War Two is just ending. Stalinist Russia is now running Poland with a rod of iron. The French Red Cross has been sent to Poland to help French soldiers who are prisoners of war in German camps (civilians having to rely on the Polish Red Cross). One of the French doctors, Mathilde, is disturbed by a Polish nun who is desperate for her help in the local convent. When she gets there she is shocked by what she finds...

"As a writer and director, Anne Fontaine often deals with the struggles of women and with stories involving sex and sexual politics, but her concerns are usually veiled by the mechanics of a crowd-pleasing story. Invariably entertaining, her films - such as the biopic 'Coco Before Chanel' and thrillers and semi-thrillers such as 'Into His Hands' and 'Nathalie' - always have deeper currents lurking beneath. In 'The Innocents', that which is underneath comes to the surface" - Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle.

Fontaine successfully merges sexual politics, religion and post world-war politics here, in this heart-wrenching, but true story. Mathilde (played wonderfully by Lou de Laâge) does her best to help the nuns, while balancing her Red Cross duties and her love life; 'The Innocents' leaves us with at least some hope from a desperate situation.