“Agnus Dei” revisits the drama of the rape of nuns during World War II.

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Months after the end of World War II, in December 1945, a young French doctor, Mathilde Beaulieu (Lou de Laâge), is assigned to work for the Red Cross in Poland. One day, she is approached by a nun who insists on taking her to her convent, even though the convent is forbidden from treating Polish patients according to the strict post-war protocol.

The nun's insistence on not resorting to Polish doctors begins to become clear when they arrive at the convent. There, a young nun is in labor, revealing the terrible secret of that group. Months ago, German soldiers, then Russians, invaded the place and raped the nuns. Some of them became pregnant. Now that the babies are beginning to be born, the Mother Superior (Agata Kulesza, Aunt Wanda from "Ida") is determined to keep the scandal from coming to light.

This is the central theme of Anne Fontaine's Franco-Polish period drama "Agnus Dei," which was painfully inspired by real events that took place in Poland.

Featuring a predominantly female and Polish cast, the talented director (of "Gemma Bovery – Life Imitates Art") delivers a solid drama, unfolding peculiar aspects of how this small community functions.

Even though she's called upon to help, the young doctor clashes with the closed-mindedness of the convent. The very nun who summoned her, for example, is punished by the Mother Superior with a vow of silence, simply for breaking the secret. Furthermore, Mathilde has difficulty examining some of the nuns – who, even after having been victims of the worst abuses, continue to consider it a sin simply to be touched, albeit in a completely different context.

One of the film's achievements is to satisfactorily individualize the nuns, some of whom suffer crises of faith due to past traumas. Others, as the prospect of motherhood approaches, become more enamored with the idea than one might naturally expect. In any case, this scenario creates characters that represent diverse aspects of femininity, which the habit and religious life certainly cannot eliminate.

Mathilde's own contrasting reality is another aspect of femininity portrayed with nuance. A liberated young woman, she has an affair with a colleague, Samuel Lehman (Vincent Macaigne), who, as practically the only notable male character, brings a unique dimension that adds complexity to the story, with his desperate skepticism and also a passion for Mathilde greater than he wishes to show.

The environment outside the convent and the Red Cross post makes successive, and often tragic or violent, intrusions, providing context to this vivid portrait of terrible times, in which every shred of human solidarity struggles simply to exist.

The film premieres in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Campinas, Santos, Salvador, Porto Alegre, Florianópolis, Brasília, Fortaleza, Curitiba, Belo Horizonte, Maceió, and Itaipava.

(By Neusa Barbosa, from Cineweb)

* The opinions expressed are the responsibility of Cineweb.