Customer Reviews
The Nun's Story 
2008-08-25
This is one of my all-time favorite movies of Audrey Hepburn. I have the VHS and wore it out. I was very glad to see it released on DVD. So many of my favorite classic movies are not released on DVD. The Nun's Story is an enthralling story of a young idealistic young woman who was brilliant in medicine thanks to the tutelage of her doctor father. Upon learning that the man she loves carries genes that will pass on severe mental disabilities, they decided that it wouldn't be right to marry. Gabrielle decides that since her life in the world was essentially over, the convent would be her best option. She works hard to become the perfect nun. Along with all the spiritual struggles she went thru, she was also able to obtain degrees in tropical medicine (the first step towards service in the Congo) to one in psychiatry. Sister Luke's spiritual troubles make you want to reach out and hug her, to let her know that she wasn't a bad nun and an excellent nurse. It was obvious that she would have made a cracker jack doctor herself if the conventions of the time would have allowed her to attend medical school. Even tho this movie has religious overtones, it was, nevertheless a fantastic movie and the scenes that were shot on site in the Belgium and the Congo were breathtaking. I adored the author of the book, Kathrine Hulme for many many years. I first read the book in 10th grade and loved it. I have a very dog-eared paperback copy that has been well loved. Only with the advent of used book merchants was I actually able to obtain a hard cover copy of the book. If you like Audrey Hepburn, you'll love her in this. Along with Audrey Hepburn, the picture had a load of top notch stars. If you don't mind the religious overtones, the movie is an excellent one to watch and the book is even better.
Obedience to rules and regulations 2008-06-15
This old film is well done and offers an interesting look inside the walls of a Roman Catholic cloister in Belgium, and then at the missionary field of Africa. But it also provides the same message as the Bible's Old Testament, that strict obedience to an exacting set of rules and regulations is impossible. One ends up doing as is implied in this film--they either cheat or they leave.
One of Audrey's Best 
2008-04-22
The only reason I didn't give this movie five stars is because the beginning of it DRAGS so badly. Be patient, it gets much better, and the choice of Audrey Hepburn, with her expressive eyes, was perfect.
It's the kind of movie that you will talk about and discuss with others who have seen it afterward, and that always makes me feel that I have seen a superior movie.
LIVING THE CRUCIFIED LIFE 2008-04-01
There are very few movies (or books) available to the true Christian believer that demonstrate the life of taking up your cross and following Christ daily. Of dying to self - so that it is no longer about you but only Christ. THIS IS ONE OF THOSE MOVIES that will be of benefit to you if you long to submit to Him - NOT THE RITUALS, NOT RELIGION - but the life that is no longer YOU - the death of YOU, of self, of vanity, of pride - of coming out from among the world and being separate. And even though the main character struggles with obedience, there is a deeper depth (for truly she is rejecting RELIGION AND RITUALS and NOT CHRIST). It is also a powerful testimony of living your life for Him no matter what - including disappointment; of finding that what HE CHOOSES is best and not that which we could ever dream up for ourselves. A MUST SEE MOVIE. WELL DONE. You won't be disappointed if you truly long for Christ, to live in His perfect will.
Spiritual Crisis in the Colonies 2008-03-20
This is a real sleeper. Fascinating for its 1959 sensibilities with regard to the white man's burden, its depiction of "the natives," the joys of being colonized by Belgium. In fairness, it is also a fascinating psychological portrait of a woman torn between spirituality and the worlds of science and politics. Hepburn at her best. This is no Deborah Kerr on the beach potboiler. Really rather unforgettable.
Great Forgot Movie 2008-02-13
Story of Gabrielle Van Der Mal who gives up everything to become a nun facing incredible odds in the Congo and then at the mother house in France at the outbreak of World War II.Running Time: 151 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA UPC: 012569739864 Manufacturer No: 73986
Fantastic and Moving 2008-02-01
Regardless of your individual religious convictions (or the lack thereof), this film deserves to be seen for its fantastic performances and the scrupulous care with which the original material was transferred to the screen. "The Nun's Story" is based on the book of the same name by Katherine Hulme, who wrote it as fiction; however, the book was a memoir of the real-life experiences of Hulme's friend and companion.
The cast list alone should tell you something: Dame Edith Evans, Peggy Ashcroft, Dean Jagger, Beatrice Straight, Colleen Dewhurst, Mildred Dunnock, Peter Finch, Niall McGinnis (a VERY long way from "Curse of the Demon" and "Anna Karenina"). Directed by Fred Zinneman ("High Noon"), the film also boasts a powerful score by Franz Waxman and gorgeous cinematography - it was filmed in Cinemascope, which had recently superceded Technicolor as the color transference system of choice.
"The Nun's Story" recounts Gabrielle Van der Mal's seventeen years in a strict Belgian order of nuns between the two world wars. Gaby (Audrey Hepburn) is the daughter of a renowned Belgian pulmonary surgeon (Dean Jagger) and has inherited his passion for medicine - she is already skilled in basic nursing and the use of a microscope. The Van der Mal family is devout, but her distinguished scientist father is nevertheless dismayed when his highly intelligent daughter announces her intention of joining an order of nursing nuns whose members also serve out in the Belgian Congo. Gaby is planning, under the convent's aegis, to train at the School for Tropical Medicine and obtain a certificate that will allow her to go out to the Congo as a nurse.
It must be remembered that in 1925, ordinary women were barred from becoming doctors, certainly from entering a field as challenging as tropical medicine, and that nuns would be a rare exception to this restriction. Thus, the film hints from the beginning that Gaby's motives for entering the religious life go beyond mere spiritual dedication. Gaby is sincere in her religious ardor, but it is only one reason that she selects this life.
From the outset, the very gifts that make Gaby a likely asset to her order's nursing staff, her intelligence and decisive temperament, present problems in her training as a nun. Her order's Rule is "Poverty, Chastity, Obedience." As her father says the day he delivers her to the convent, "Gaby, I can see you poor, I can see you chaste; but for the life of me, I cannot see you obedient." And, indeed, the training in obedient, unthinking detachment that makes responding to a prayer bell a higher priority than completing the administering of medicine to a patient, all chafe at Gaby's essential nature. She is influenced and encouraged in this struggle by the charismatic Superior General of the order, played with a wonderful combination of majesty and compassion by the great Dame Edith Evans.
Nevertheless, despite some bumps in the road, Gaby passes successfully through her year as a postulant and takes her initial vows, where she is given the name Sister Luke. As Sister Luke she enters the School of Tropical Medicine, receives her coveted certificate, and sets out on the life she has chosen for herself, although it will require three years of further testing by her superiors, who do not quite trust that she has subdued her will and is sufficiently "in the mold", before she is sent out to the Congo. During the three-year testing period, Sister Luke passes through two major crises that force her to reexamine her fitness for the religious life, but at last she takes her final vows, and is told to prepare herself to go out to the Congo, where she will join a small group of nursing sisters attached to two hospitals, one for white Europeans and one for the Congo natives.
The film then covers the next decade of Sister Luke's life in the Congo, and her struggles to combine her commitment to becoming a fine nurse AND a fine nun, one who personifies her Order's Rule. However, an appropriate balance between the two becomes more elusive, rather than closer, as the years progress. Sister Luke's struggle is not helped by the entry onto the scene of Dr. Fortunati (Peter Finch), a difficult but gifted surgeon that Sister Luke must work with. He brings a sexual charge into the atmosphere and is, moreover, an atheist. He discerns immediately that Sister Luke, whose skills he considers to be far above those of other nursing sisters he has worked with, is NOT "in the mold". When Sister Luke contracts tuberculosis, Dr. Fortunati tells her plainly that he believes her health is reflecting her emotional conflict, but Sister Luke refuses to accept his diagnosis.
By the time this confrontation occurs, World War II is shaping ominously on the horizon - years have gone by, and suddenly the Mother House in Belgium recalls Sister Luke, ostensibly to accompany a difficult patient home to Europe. Sister Luke goes very reluctantly, by now hopelessly in love with the African landscape, and she plans to return. But within a short time of her return, WWII finally erupts, Germany invades Holland and then Belgium, and Sister Luke's return to the Congo is cut off.
It is now nearly 17 years since she entered the convent, and Sister Luke is horrified to find that, after all this time, she is as unable as ever to subdue her worldy feelings to the spiritual direction of the Order. She is consumed with an un-Christian hatred of the enemy (who also occupied Belgium during World War I) that is completely at variance with her spiritual training. Her hatred is fanned into a blazing bonfire when she learns that her father has been killed by German strafing as he stopped to help the wounded along a road on which thousands were fleeing to the countryside.
This information brings Sister Luke to a crossroads that, in reality, she has been approaching since she first entered the convent. The crisis she passes through as she considers whether to persevere or break her vows dwarfs her previous struggles, and her decision gives the film its stunning ending.
Whether or not you yourself accept the tenets of Christianity or any other religion is not important - the film is a work of art that examines a unique life and a set of experiences that few in today's fast-paced modern world can imagine. The point is not Gaby's Christianity - the point is one woman's struggle to reconcile two seemingly opposing facets of her character, both of which she sincerely honors, and the inevitable confrontation that forces her to give one up.
Today, there are few Orders left that reflect the severe character of the one that Gaby enters so young. The film offers a fascinating portrait of life inside such an Order and is exquisitely filmed. It manages to convey the austere beauty of life inside the Mother House, but does not spare the hypocrisies, petty jealousies, and mistakes that flourish within it. The more colorful life of the nursing nuns in the Congo is also gorgeous. The performances are magnificent, and it is a tribute to Hepburn that her youthful beauty does not undermine her portrayal of Sister Luke.
This is a fantastic film and not to be missed.
An Ageless Classic 2008-01-02
One of my childhood favorites has lost nothing over the decades since its original release. I saw it more than once then and plan to do so now. Great acting and an incredibly gripping story. It's a winner and I'm delighted to have this high-quality DVD in my collection.
What Her Heart and Soul Desired She Could Not Have; What Her Convent Demanded She Could Not Give. 2007-12-31
"You'll never be the kind of nun your convent expects you to be." So were the words of cynical and religiously indifferent Doctor Fortunati (Peter Finch) as he is able to peer through the mind and soul of a beautiful young girl who's prospect to have joined a religious order, in his estimation, was total phoniness. This is just one of many hints that the young nun picked up that maybe she's in the wrong profession-excellent nurse but bad nun. Her nursing capabilities went ahead of the cloister.
Sister Luke served God in an insane asylum, in an African jungle, and in a war. In all three circumstances, her steadfastness to her vows was put to the test: when she was almost killed by an inmate after having been told by a Superior not to open up her cell door (but the poor woman was thirsty); She developed an attachment to the Congo so strong, she did not want to return to the archaic Mother House in Belgium; In Belgium, she, in her capacity as a nurse, felt obliged to help the underground as war broke out, only to learn her father got killed by Nazis. In all three circumstances, she was forced to look deep in herself to see if what she chose was right for her. The last situation "took the cake." The conclusion? "I'm no longer a nun," she told her confessor. She was at once grieving for her father, and yet could not contain inner automatic hatred for the enemy. She admited she rejoiced when a German nurse died in the hospital where she was working. Her final solution? To be released from her vows by special dispensation.
The book by Katheryn Hulme presents way more conflict and drama, but the essentials are beautifully portrayed in this film, somewhat ahead of its time. I'm surprised the Catholic Church did not blacklist it in the Catholic press at the time; not that I knew of. The book was favorably announced, I noticed, in a pre-1960s Catholic periodical.
Little-known best film 2007-11-11
The is a wonderful film and story. I myself thought that her love for medicine and helping people in the end won over her desire to devote her life spiritually. Her fathers death was the moment she received the grace and courage to live her truth. Just a sweet, sweet story and she was indeed torn. I loved in certain parts of the film she kept getting tested. Just when she thought she was getting closer to her desires for the Congo there would be something pulling at her or in the way. The insane asylum in Belgium where she was first sent (and then sent to watch over the ward of the most dangerous and seriously ill) would test the will of God himself. Even once she got to the Congo she was sent to the European hospital..not in the lepper colonies and with the village hospital as she longed for with her huge knowledge of tropical diseases etc...her scare with TB, recuperation process and replationship with the Dr. was touching and enlightening for her and the viewer...just great. I agree this was one of her best films and cannot imagine it being made today. She was such a true genuine talent. Glad it is on DVD and I appreciate the other reviews with the information on the cinema history. It is a little on the long side, so it needs a big bowl of popcorn! :)
