The French film Les innocentes was shown in the U.S. with the translated title The Innocents (2016). Anne Fontaine directed this powerful movie.

The year is 1945, just after the end of World War II. A French Red Cross unit is sent into Poland. Their mission was to care for French survivors of the camps. Among the Red Cross staff is a young medical student, Mathilde Beaulieu, played by Lou de Laâge. Early in the film, we learn a terrible secret about the nuns in a nearby convent. Many of them are pregnant, because they were raped by Russian soldiers. Mathilde learns of this, and she is allowed to enter the convent, where she meets Sister Maria, a French-speaking nun played by Agata Buzek. To go further with the plot would diminish the movie, so I'll stop at that point. Let me just say that the situation is even worse than it seems.

This is a movie that is not to be missed. Yes, it's grim, but postwar Poland was a grim place. The film takes place in winter, so snow covers everything, and even the Red Cross staff is miserable. Obviously, for the nuns in the convent, everything is much more terrible.

The acting in the film by the two lead actors is outstanding. Also, the ensemble acting was wonderful. There were no weak links, and no obviously staged scenes. Everything looked real--cold, dark, and threatening--but real.

This is one of those movies where many frames could be lifted from the film and used as a photograph. My compliments to cinematographer Caroline Champetier, who did a brilliant job.

We saw this film at the excellent Little Theatre in Rochester, NY. It will work well enough on the small screen, but the large screen gives you a better sense of the isolation of the convent. The nuns don't expect help from outside. They only expect harm to come to them. Mathilde is the exception, and they (and we) understand that. Small screen or large screen, don't miss this movie!

P.S. The film is based on the experiences of a French doctor--Madeleine Jeanne Marie Pauliac. She was a member of the French Resistance, and did, indeed work tirelessly in Poland after the war. For artistic reasons, director Fontaine focused on Dr. Pauliac's work with the pregnant nuns. The rest of her accomplishments would also make a fascinating movie.

With seventeen writing and sixteen directing credits on her CV it's fair to say that Anne Fontaine has paid her dues and knows how films are put together; I've seen and enjoyed perhaps a dozen of these but I have no hesitation in saying that The Innocents surpasses anything she has done by a country mile; all I can say is that this is Fontaine's Citizen Kane and in my book that's another way of saying the best there is. It's one of an increasing number of films set in and/or either side of World War Two based on actual incidents, Katyn is another, for example, but it would be wrong to assume that this was sufficient to guarantee success. For that we have to look to the creative term or, to put it another way you can deliver a ton of Carera marble to a sculptor but it's up to the sculptor to fashion it into something outstanding or something mediocre. Fontaine, given her marble and enlisting the aid of three outstanding actresses - Lou de Laage, Agata Buzek and Agata Kulesza - fashioned it into a masterpiece. The plot has been described else where: 1945, Poland. Lou de Laage is working with the French Red Cross. A nun solicits her help, she turns her away. A little later she sees the same nun, on her knees in the snow praying desperately for heavenly intervention. Breaking the rules of her contract she 'borrows' an ambulance and accompanies the nun to the convent where she finds a woman about to give birth. The Abbess, Agata Lulesza, explains that they have taken the girl in out of pity but rejects any help. Another nun, Agata Buzek, speaks French and persuades the Abbess to accept the help of the French doctor. So begins a bonding between the French doctor and the Polish nun. The first revelation is that Russian soldiers visited the convent three times leaving seven nuns pregnant. Later the doctor discovers the Abbess has syphilis. There is, if possible, a final revelation even more horrific than the en masse raping of seven nuns. Shot in colour but muted to resemble black and white, in a bleak Polish winter with virtually no music Fontaine holds the attention effortlessly and has surely coaxed Award winning performances out of the three leads or else there is no justice in the world yet every single performance is A +. The highest praise is not good enough for this film.

From the director Anne Fontaine. Like any of her works, this is another top class women oriented film. But it was partially based on the incredible true story. Partial means, no one knows what was the actual event. The director and her writers inspired by the diary the French doctor who worked for Red Cross in Poland at the end of the World War II, who wrote down her experience on it. So, with the small-small facts the story was built on for the film. Well done job by the cast and crew.

Whenever you hear the word/abbreviation 'WWII', it always bound with nazi Germans. Since this tale takes place just after the war, when the Soviet took over the Poland from them, it is set to reveal one of the extremely hidden secrets. Just imagine how secret it is, like you have read many books and have seen many films regarding the WWII, but you have never heard about this, until now. It is a heart rending tale, but the thing is everything's about the aftermath, how they handled their state of condition.

Mathilde, the French doctor is fetched by a nun from the nearby convent is shocked when she reached there to see most of them are in the final stage of their pregnancy. They were sexually abused by the Soviet soldiers, but now she as to keep it quiet as requested by the mother superior. She's being an atheist and to whom she's treating, the believers, is exactly the opposite kind. But not just her, the nuns as well put aside their differences to overcome their situation.

❝For us nuns, the end of the war does not mean the end of fear.❞

It's right on the coldest winter, does not tell about the original violence, but there's still a few incidents about the army atrocities, how they treated innocent nuns, even the Red Cross members. But remember nothing was the actual depiction. It would have been even better if it was a documentary film. Doing some research and telling us the tale, reading exactly as what was written in the diary. But the film was not bad, except the scene to scene, event to event it was very slow to move, except right on the point.

The story has a twist, but it was not like very powerful. It depends on how you would consider it. Because for me, I felt it was too cruel, hard to take on. The story about church people means, you would expect a gentle kind. Or even in such situation, as in this film, to react as much as possibly generously as what they're known for. But in the first place, it was no ones fault. They all fighting for the same reason, especially keeping the outside world in mind, each one reacted differently. So it is understandable, but not all the acts were respectable.

As the director said in her interview, this is a period film, but pretty much the same in the contemporary world where war is on. The violence against the innocent women. So it is a debatable topic. And if it was directed by some male filmmaker, he might have risked with the violences in the flashback scenes to bring more depth in the narration. The present film is kind of compromises on that, but still not easy to watch everything it shows. Particularly for the families. Great performances by all. One of the best films on this theme and of the year. The film is not to be ignored. Despite not about the war, but just like 'Under Sandet', about the following event.

8/10