WHITE SISTER
Italy, 1972, 96 minutes, Colour.
Sophia Loren, Adriano Celentano, Fernando Rey.
Directed by Alberto Lattuada.
White Sister is a popular soap opera - in fact , it looks something like a pilot for a television series. It focuses on nuns and convent life as well as life in a general hospital.
Sophia Loren gets her opportunity to play the part of a nun - not without some glamorous and sexy flashbacks. She acquits herself honourably in this soap opera atmosphere. Popular Italian singer of the 60s and 70s, Adriano Celentano, is the crippled rouseabout at the hospital who falls in love with Sister Germana, but is a member of the Communist Party - with predictable tangles. Fernando Ray is a sympathetic doctor at the hospital.
Ingredients are familiar but played with emotion, Italian style.
1. Entertaining hospital story? Familiar characters and material? The difference with the background of Sisters and convent life?
2. The Libyan settings and the atmosphere of the open? The Italian settings the city, the hospital, people? The Italian flavour? Musical score?
3. The title, the focus on Sister Germana, the experiences in Libya, her habit, her work in the hospital? Sophia Loren's sympathetic portrait of Sister Germana: being bought up in Libya, the initial concern with the military attack, the raping of the sisters, the birth of the sisters child? Her leaving Libya? Her memories her boyfriend, the work, glamour, sexy, her love for the boyfriend, her grief at his death? Entering the convent? Stern and strict? Going to the hospital, taking over as Superior, the other sisters, her sympathy to the patients, her clashes with Annibale? His bating her? Discussions with the doctors, the museum? Her decisions? Crisis? The battered girl and her angers? Lucia the prostitute and her sympathy - but unable to help her? Annibale's attentions, his going to her room, turning him out? Forced to think about her vocation, herself, her hardness? Annibale leaving, the protest, his injuries, looking after him and his death? A mellowing?
4. Annibale, his lameness, in the hospital, friends with everyone, Communist background? His criticisms of the church? His sympathy with the rest of the patients, going on the grounds, helping the old man to die better than Sister Germana could? The strike and his action? Up to mischief, at the bar? Eventually being ousted? His medical skills? The Communist protests? The strikes? His injuries, going to the hospital, his death?
6. The doctors, the running of the hospital, the relationship with the staff, with Sister Germana, with the patients? The museum and research? Antagonism towards Sitter Germana?
7. The range of the patients, familiar styles. illnesses? deaths? The moments of death? The girl with the battered finger and her tantrums? Lucia and the death, walking the streets, her inability to be helped by Sister Germana?
8. Familiar hospital material? Always popular ingredients? The touches of religion?
