The Nun's Story

A film about a woman entering a convent and the seventeen years she spends there. Gabrielle is the daughter of a Belgian surgeon. She enters the convent before the war, meaning to go to the Belgian Congo as a nurse. She takes the name Sister Luke. The first half is training. The rules are shown in detail: silence, obedience, exercises in self-abasement. At one point her superiors ask her to fail an examination deliberately; it is a test of humility. The second half is in the Congo. She works at a hospital beside an atheist surgeon. She turns out to be a good nurse, and that is the problem: doing the work well requires using her own will, and her vows forbid exactly that. Then the war comes and a choice opens between the order to stay neutral and her father's country. The source is Kathryn Hulme's novel; the book is based on the life of a real person, Marie Louise Habets. Audrey Hepburn plays Gabrielle and Peter Finch the surgeon. Edith Evans and Peggy Ashcroft are in the cast. Fred Zinnemann directed. The film was nominated for eight Academy Awards and won none. A strong example for anyone who likes drama that takes faith and institutions seriously. For a viewer expecting pace, the film is long and its rhythm is deliberately slow.