The Jamie Stuart Chronicles
...mother
superior at nyff press conference
Tuesday, September 24th
It was a beautiful day for my first round of screenings at the 40th New York
Film Festival. I showed up early for the day’s first, Peter Mullan’s The
Magdelene Sisters, and found a line already formed outside the Walter Reade
Theater. I bumped into my friend Jami Bernard, film critic for The Daily News,
and upon actually seeing my press pass in person, she congratulated me.
The Magdelene Sisters was emotionally exhausting. It was inspired by the
true events surrounding the Sisters of the Magdelene Order, who profited through
the use of virtual slave labor throughout Ireland. The nuns ran laundries and
used out-of-wedlock mothers, mostly brought there by embarrassed families, as
the principal labor.
It’s the second film from writer/director Peter Mullan, best known Stateside
as Mother Superior in Trainspotting. He told the audience at the press
conference that the Catholic Church’s protests had done more to help him than
hurt. After all, each newspaper column has begun by describing him as a Best
Actor winner from the Cannes Film Festival.
I asked him to address his film in relation to America’s ongoing sex scandals.
He replied: “The Church, and not just the Catholic Church -- the Protestant
Church also -- they have to do something really big. It has to be more than just
money. If they’re going to survive the 21st Century, they’re going to have
to really... If they were to survive it, then the changes would have to be
major. I don’t know anyone now, who if the priest came to their door and said,
I want to take your kids away to summer camp... Now, 20 years ago, that would
have happened. My mother -- this would have been 30 years ago -- if a priest had
come to her door and offered to take the boys to summer camp, she would’ve
said, Yeah. Cause you’re a priest and you don’t do bad things. That’s the
whole kind of insanity. Now, I honestly don’t know a single soul -- I have
lots of friends that are still practicing Catholics -- I don’t know one who
would say, Yes, Father, have my 5 year old son for the summer. It just
wouldn’t happen.”
Next up, was Abbas Kiarostami’s latest film 10. I dozed off during it.
The premise is intriguing -- 2 cameras set up to record a car’s revolving
passengers and its driver, a woman traveling around modern Tehran -- however it
was meant to be a short film not a feature. It’s a film you’ll think about
afterward, it’s just not so enjoyable as it plays.
Kiarostami has always had visa problems with The United States, due to being
Iranian. Our war on terrorism made it impossible for him to attend the festival.
The announcement was made before the screening, and I actually saw a few people
leave the theater disappointed.
PAGE 2 of the NYFF coverage
-Copyright 2002 by Jamie Stuart