Sex in a Cold Climate (1998 TV Movie) User Reviews

True Horror

[slake09 · 7/10 · 12 February 2005]

While the film itself does nothing new with the format of a documentary, I don't get the impression that was their goal. They simply wanted to bring this story to the world, and in that they succeeded. The Magdalene were obviously the next thing to a concentration camp for wayward girls, and that they were allowed to persist in their mass execution of the human spirit shows the true evil inherent in organized religion.

I'm sure there is a another side to the story; isn't there always? No doubt some measure of good was done along with all the bad, but you won't see it here, nor would you be willing to go looking for it after hearing some of the things that were done to these women. There is just no excuse for it, no reason, no justification. After watching this you may find yourself tempted to kick an Irish nun.

The documentary is tightly filmed, clear, concise. Not a moment is wasted in idle speculation or theorizing, every frame is devoted to telling the story of four women who were subjected to the brutalization of the Magdalene sisters and somewhat of their lives before and after. If you have the merest interest in the subject, it's an excellent source of information, watchable and charged with emotion.

Suffer Little Children

[sjmrheathrow · 9/10 · 19 January 2019]

Steve Humphries' (1998) documentary is a piece of original photojournalism and social history which documents the testimony of four women who recount their early lives and enounters with a chain of institutions in Ireland which were known by the name of the biblical figure Mary Magdalene.

Children and young women who found themselves arriving at these places became known to the outside world, and even the children from the orphanages which became an awful logical adjunct to them, as 'Magdalenes'.

Mary Magdalene is, like the Laundries in Ireland which bore her name until very recently, nothing if not the source of considerable and enduring controversy. She ranges from being a fallen woman, or harlot to being a saintly disciple of Christ who was present both at his crucifiction and resurrection.

Through the course of the documentary, we come to know Martha Cooney, Christina Mulcahy, Phyllis Valentine and Brigid Young as they tell their own story as best they can. In the testimony of these brave women, we begin to get a feel for the places in which they grew up and what went on there.

Phyllis and Brigid were orphans to begin with, but as their story unfolds the meaning of the word 'orphan' in this context becomes a little suspect. And as Brigid's story takes on it's own powerful momentum, we begin to realise that the orphanages attached to The Magdalene Laundries were an unnatural consequence of the way that the inmates of the Laundries were selected and their natural emotional bonds with their infant children broken.

Many of the worst abuses that these women recall and describe are dramatically reconstructed in Peter Mullan's (2002) feature film 'The Magdalene Sisters'.

As the documentary develops, and the testimony of the four women builds, an uncomfortable pattern begins to emerge. A terrible and unmistakable inversion of the vision of the Christ who said 'Suffer little children to come unto me' is perversely transformed into a dark vision of a Christ who might have said instead 'Make little children who come unto me suffer'. This seems quite clearly to have been the fate of these children who came into the care of the Church as involuntary inmates of the Magdalene Orphanages and Laundries.

Like the great documentaries of earlier times, Steve Humphries film begins a deep social catharsis that alone has the power to transform the lives of vulnerable children in the future. No parliamentary enactment can ever protect them as comprehensively as a well-informed public who clearly understand the nature of the mischief which is being made in their name and with their apparent consent.

Suffer little children

[john-3109 · 10/10 · 8 March 2006]

Steve Humphries' (1998) documentary is a piece of original photojournalism and social history which documents the testimony of four women who recount their early lives and encounters with a chain of institutions in Ireland which were known by the name of the biblical figure Mary Magdalene.

Children and young women who found themselves arriving at these places became known to the outside world, and even the children from the orphanages which became an awful logical adjunct to them, as 'Magdalenes'.

Mary Magdalene is, like the Laundries in Ireland which bore her name until very recently, nothing if not the source of considerable and enduring controversy. She ranges from being a fallen woman, or harlot to being a saintly disciple of Christ who was present both at his crucifixion and resurrection.

Through the course of the documentary, we come to know Martha Cooney, Christina Mulcahy, Phyllis Valentine and Brigid Young as they tell their own story as best they can. In the testimony of these brave women, we begin to get a feel for the places in which they grew up and what went on there.

Phyllis and Brigid were orphans to begin with, but as their story unfolds the meaning of the word 'orphan' in this context becomes a little suspect. And as Brigid's story takes on it's own powerful momentum, we begin to realise that the orphanages attached to The Magdalene Laundries were an unnatural consequence of the way that the inmates of the Laundries were selected and their natural emotional bonds with their infant children broken.

Many of the worst abuses that these women recall and describe are dramatically reconstructed in Peter Mullan's (2002) feature film 'The Magdalene Sisters'.

As the documentary develops, and the testimony of the four women builds, an uncomfortable pattern begins to emerge. A terrible and unmistakable inversion of the vision of the Christ who said 'Suffer little children to come unto me' is perversely transformed into a dark vision of a Christ who might have said instead 'Make little children who come unto me suffer'. This seems quite clearly to have been the fate of these children who came into the care of the Church as involuntary inmates of the Magdalene Orphanages and Laundries.

Like the great documentaries of earlier times, Steve Humphries film begins a deep social catharsis that alone has the power to transform the lives of vulnerable children in the future. No parliamentary enactment can ever protect them as comprehensively as a well-informed public who clearly understand the nature of the mischief which is being made in their name and with their apparent consent.

Harrowing stories of Ireland's Magdalene asylums

[hofnarr · 10/10 · 2 February 2004]

SPOILERS

Imagine the following as news items:

"Retired nurse died shortly after reuniting with son taken from her at age 10 months. She was 79; her son 57."

"Young woman escapes after 8 years of involuntary servitude from age 15. Captors "very very vicious" - other women punched, slapped, beaten with leather implements.

"Girl, 14, sexually assaulted; stripped naked numerous times."

"Captive woman beaten about head and shoulders; motivational speaker masturbated on top of her before speaking engagements."

Given the tenor of these times, these reports might not seem unusual. But these events occurred within ecclesiastical institutions - the Magdalene Asylums of Ireland. Andrew Sarris indicates in his article in the New York Observer "Magdalene Survivors Speak - British Doc Inspired Mullan's Film" (Feb 2, 2004) that already existing secular asylums were taken over by the Catholic church in the mid-1800's, although the last did not close until 1996.

The nurse, Christina Mulcahy (1918-1997), met a soldier in 1920 who gave a line still used today:

This is the only true way to show you love somebody.

Second visit:

You did it before, why can't you do it now?

"And that," she said, "was the time I got pregnant."

He wasn't a heartless cad; he came to see her and helped to name the baby. He didn't write her back, though. But as Christina said, "Then he was gone, and he wasn't getting the letters I was writing him."

"I would have married him - I loved him."

(Christina was on the verge of tears every time on screen; Sarris notes she only agreed to the interviews because she was diagnosed with terminal cancer. She'd kept her secret for over 50 years by then).

Phyllis Valentine wasn't told for several years why, at age 15, she was transferred from an orphanage to a Magdalene Asylum laundry. A nun finally told her, "You're as pretty as a picture . . . the nuns were afraid you'd 'fall away'." (e.g. she was so pretty men might not be able to leave her alone . . . which might embarrass them - and would, of course, be Phyllis's fault). "I was put away for that reason only."

Martha Coomy (b. 1927) was working at a farm. A cousin took her to a fair. He had a bit of drink. He assaulted her. She confided in another cousin. The story percolated. She very quickly ended up doing laundry at a Magdalene asylum - "I got varicose veins from the ironing at 15." She was told working there was a privilege - "we'd be forgiven in time."

Brigid Young (b. 1939) was never in an asylum, but rather a nearby orphanage (she left in 1956). Contact with the Magdalene women was strictly forbidden. We were made to believe they were very, very bad people." She was taking laundry to be washed; an unmarried mother manage to sneak to the back gate and asked her to help her see her child (also at the orphanage) from a distance. But Brigid was caught before the mother could get away from the gate and severely beaten by the Reverend Mother. "And this was just for talking to the Magdalenes." (The "motivational speaker" mentioned in the opening paragraph was the priest she'd seen for confession afterwards. He gave the Mass after each assault).

Why has so much been reported on abuse of men and so little on women? The Church isn't opening its books; it's estimated that in the 20th century some 30,000 women entered the gates of the asylums; some never departed. Less than 10% of rapes are said to be reported. Shame - especially in a Catholic Ireland - could certainly be a sufficient reason.

When Christina originally went home, her father told her she wasn't coming to his house; she wasn't "right in the head" if she'd brought a child into the world.

After 8 years in an asylum Phyllis escaped to Dublin. "If somebody looked at you in the street you felt they were looking at you because you were bad . .. I thought people knew who I was . . .I was frightened to talk to anyone."

Martha: apart from the sexual abuse itself, "The biggest sin in Ireland . .. was to talk."

According to the Sarris article, no women in Ireland would talk to the director, Steve Humphries - only women who'd escaped to England.

Brigid left the orphanage in 1956. It had "a terrible effect . . . It haunts you." She had nothing good to say. "I didn't see anything godly in that Church. A bunch of bullies - that was all I saw . . . devils dressed up in nun's habits.

Phyllis: "Nuns weren't supposed to be evil . . . Sisters of Mercy . . . they didn't show us any mercy."

While making a general confession, a priest told Christina to come to his side of the confessional box. When she did, he was exposing himself. "You are not a man of God," she said. "You really are not a man of God."

Christina was told to be quiet and to keep her mouth shut.

A sad story

[filmsfan38 · 10/10 · 2 October 2007]

I just saw this documentary today. It was on the same DVD movie as "The Magdelene Sisters" and is the true story of the 4 young women whose stories were told in the movie. The movie was emotional, but for me, seeing the documentary was far more emotional because it was the real people when they were older at the time the documentary was made which was in 1987 I think.

All the stories left me in tears, but Christina's story got to me the most. I cried along with Christina when she talked about having too give up her baby and how much she longed to see him when she was kept prisoner in The Magdeline Asylum. You could tell that even years later when she was an old lady, by the way she still cried, that her experiences at the Asylum and the loss of her son, had deeply affected her. Her still very beautiful blue eyes filled with tears at the mention of her son. I was also greatly emotional when she mentioned about when she told the nun that she wanted to see her son and the nun was going to beat Christina with a belt, and Christina told the nun that she had been promised she would get to see her son and if she got to see him that was all she was asking and if the nun hit her, she would kill her, and Christina said she was prepared to do that and go to prison, but insisted she had to see her son, the nun backed off and she was allowed to see her son, but it didn't show you that part.

Someone said in another message here that the last time Christina saw her son, he was 10 months old, but I got the impression from the documentary that he was older than that, perhaps 8 or so, because Christina asked one of the orphanage girls next door if they knew her "boy" so I would think by that time her child was not a baby. Christina breaks your heart and you can see the deep sadness on her face in the documentary, which was filmed 57 years after she had her baby. I was so glad to learn in the documentary that Christina was finally re-united with her son but not till she was and old lady and only because she knew she was dying. It must have been a great moment when she saw her son after all these years. She kept it secret from her family that she had a son when she was young. If only she had gotten to know him much sooner.

Martha's story was also very sad. She said she never married because she could never allow anyone to have power over her.Its understandable, but she seemed like a fine woman who deserved love in her life. Brigid's story was also sad. She was disillusioned after being sexually abused by a priest at the Magdelene asylum. Phyllis's story was also sad. She left the catholic church after her bad experiences. After seeing this documentary and the movie, what strikes me as more obvious than anything was the backward attitude of the day, especially bad in Catholic Ireland because of the priests and dogma of the Catholic church having such a strong hold on catholics.

It always seemed so unfair to me that the girls who got pregnant and ended up in the Magdelene Asylum had to take full responsibility for getting pregnant as if they got pregnant by themselves and the boy who got them pregnant had no blame attached to them and just carried on their merry way as if they were innocent bystanders. I thought it took two people to make a baby. The girl always had to suffer alone, yet she was only one half of the "sin" as the Catholic church called it. Blatant sexism of the time. I am glad we have moved on since then.

The nuns and priests of Magdalene asylum should have been put in jail and given life sentences for the damage they did to those girls who either made a mistake or many did nothing at all to deserve such a life of horror, cruelty and sexual abuse. The future lives of most of the girls were destroyed. To the ones who survived, they deserve a lot of credit just for the fact that they survived and that is their greatest triumph. To any of the Asylum laundry girls who survived that horrific hell hole, I salute you. I hope you had some happiness in your life. Your pure spirit got you through.

Those poor women

[e-09873 · 10/10 · 16 August 2019]

Hard to watch and listen to but is a must watch, what these women went through was horrible. Definitly should be seen by everyone to prevent any religion doing something like this again