Les innocentes
The Innocents
Les Innocentes (The innocents)
Based on a true story from post-World War II Poland, this satisfying drama follows a young female French doctor who finds herself caught up in the lives of nuns, traumatised and shamed by their wartime suffering.
Warsaw, December 1945: the second World War is finally over and Mathilde is treating the last of the French survivors of the German camps. When a panicked Benedictine nun appears at the clinic one night begging Mathilde to follow her back to the convent, what she finds there is shocking: a holy sister about to give birth and several more in advanced stages of pregnancy.
A non-believer, Mathilde enters the sisters' fiercely private world, dictated by the rituals of their order and the strict Rev. Mother (Agata Kulesza, Ida). Fearing the shame of exposure, the hostility of the new anti-Catholic Communist government, and facing an unprecedented crisis of faith, the nuns increasingly turn to Mathilde as their belief and traditions clash with harsh realities.
Synopsis
Mathilde Beaulieu, une jeune interne de la Croix-Rouge chargée de soigner les rescapés français avant leur rapatriement, est appelée au secours par une religieuse polonaise.
D’abord réticente, Mathilde accepte de la suivre dans son couvent où trente Bénédictines vivent coupées du monde. Elle découvre que plusieurs d’entre elles, tombées enceintes dans des circonstances dramatiques, sont sur le point d’accoucher.
Peu à peu, se nouent entre Mathilde, athée et rationaliste, et les religieuses, attachées aux règles de leur vocation, des relations complexes que le danger va aiguiser...
C’est pourtant ensemble qu’elles retrouveront le chemin de la vie.