A beautiful film made with much love and care - Fred Zinneman and Audrey Hepburn at the height of their powers. The film takes it's time telling the story with (seeming) accuracy and sympathy as Hepburn joins the convent, goes through basic training, then specialist training, and out to her first gig (at a mental hospital)... before going to the Congo. It's a lot like military movies, come to think of it.
Personal opinions are inevitable in movies about religion and for my mind few films have been more effective in demonstrating the oppressiveness of the Catholic Church - Hepburn is told to give up herself, any dreams and ambitions. One nun encourages her to fail a test because she's too smart (her father is a doctor and she's great with medicine), she gets in trouble for being applauded by patients, any ambition is crushed, religion is meant to come before her work at the hospital, she can't take sides in World War Two. Maybe I loved this in part because it sort of confirmed with views I had about the church - but it's still magnificent filmmaking.
It's just so well done - all the acting is sensitive and the scenes are so well evoked. Actors who I've seen ham it up such as Lionel Jeffries and Dean Jagger are restrained and wonderful. I love the relationship between Hepburn and her father - he loves her, thinks she's making a mistake, but is there for her. Electric cameo from Colleen Dewhurst as a crazy lady - but even this is handled with discretion. All the nun actors are good too.
Peter Finch is terrific in what could have been a cliche part (a hard drinking, tough colonial doctor) but he's really superb - the right combination of intelligence and anger. It's a very "Aussie" performance - he feels Australian here, sunburnt and weather-beaten, fond of a drink and fishing, a bit misogynist. The relationship between he and Hepburn is spot on - a sprinkling of urst (checking her bare back with a stethoscope) but mostly respect and intelligence.
Only once or twice did the movie strike a bung note for me: the conversion of the Congolese felt a bit fuzzy and I wasn't wild about the war montage. But they are minor flaws in a masterpiece. It feels so real - the churches, the African setting, the hospitals, etc.
So many great bits: the ceremonial activity, Hepburn cutting her hair; the bit of one of the novices sneezing as she walks off to her new life; the patients applauding Hepburn after she graduates; the shocking murder of a nun by a man in a Congo (this made me literally gasp - especially as it takes place in a hospital ward and involves several strikes by the man in between pauses); the final, stunning image of Hepburn walking off to her new life. It's awesome.
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