“The Wonder,” film directed by Sebastián Lelio, 2022 (some spoilers…)
This is another one of those depressing Irish films,
dwelling on the rural backwardness of the past, like the almost idiotic Banshees of Inisherin. But unlike the absurd inanity of Banshees, this one is a philosophic film
aimed directly at religious superstition.
It reflects the current enmity in Ireland against the Catholic Church
for its various crimes – child abuse, dead orphans and ‘illegitimate’ children
buried behind orphanages; anti-abortion fundamentalism, retrograde politics and
hatred of women. In this story the echoes of the famine of 1847 hover in the
background, though the scene is set in 1862.
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| The nurse and the 'holy' girl |
It is the story of an Irish farm girl, Anna, who has
stopped eating for 4 months and has become a beacon of holiness for locals and
the faithful. She represents a miracle of the mortification of the flesh. A
group of 5 village men – a local council person, a priest, a convinced religious man, a
quack doctor and one free-thinker – hire a sophisticated professional nurse
from London to watch the girl and try to understand how she is surviving on
only water. A nun is also hired, so they
take shifts.
At first the nurse, played by Florence Pugh, observes the
healthy girl carefully, taking notes, searching for hidden food, checking her
vitals. The girl says she survives with ‘manna from heaven.’ What that
mysterious substance is, is unknown. The
girl prays constantly, plays with the religious cards of various saints, reads
her Bible, sings church songs – clearly a ‘devout’ soul. The family – a deeply religious mother,
father and sister - still have physical contact with the girl several times a
day. It is a mystery how the girl
survives.
A former local who is now a newspaperman comes to the town
to investigate what he considers a hoax, as it is impossible not to eat for 4
months without dying. He tries to
interview the nurse and asks her out to eat. She rejects his advances for a while, though
they eventually form a relationship.
The nurse then notices that the mother is passing food
through kissing, like a mother bird feeding a baby bird. She cups her mouth while doing so to hide the
process. The nurse forbids the family
from touching the girl. In a later tearful scene, Anna admits the holy ‘manna’
is from her mother. Anna also explains
her dreadful motivation for the ruse. She
was raped by her older, deceased brother and this mortification is to free his
soul from the burnings of hell, for the sex was her fault. The nurse is
appalled. After the feeding stops and
the child starts to waste away, the mother refuses to encourage her to eat. The nurse knows she will die. The family want her to die as penance, to
save her and her brother’s wicked souls.
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| Isolated Irish cottages - not always romantic... |
The nurse hatches a radical plan to save the girl, which I
won’t go into. The story is an arrow aimed at the heart of cruel and irrational
faith, of Catholicism gone literal. The cursed low cabin on the heath hides a
family of back-hills violence and archaic ideas. They dwell in visions of a non-existent hell
and sexual blame towards the ‘lure’ of a young girl. Though unsaid, they raised
a son who raped his sister, so their guilt is to be expatiated too.
The film is too long, it’s slow and cramped at times. The
odds of feeding someone adequately through passing a bit of food several times
a day through the lips is dubious. The film shows the sophistication of people
in the city versus that of isolated rural farmers somewhere north of Dublin. The film is relevant because the split between
country and city still exists; the fight between backward religion and
materially-based science is still ongoing; the curse of male chauvinism and
violence is also ongoing. Social time
has not aged well, as bogus miracles continue to happen. Watch the film if you can.
Prior blog reviews on this topic, use blog search box, upper left, to investigate our 16 year archive, using these terms: "Abortion Referendum in Ireland," "The Immortal Irishman," "Sean O'Casey," "A Full Life: James Connolly," "Jimmy's Hall" (Loach); "Ireland - What's Up?" "1916 Rebellion Walking Tour, Dublin Ireland," "The Irish Literary Trail," "Black 47," "Rebellion," "The Dream of the Celt" (Llosa); "Without Apology."
The Cultural Marxist
May 29, 2023
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