I have a theory that perhaps Sister Paul had taken in a vagrant & was letting him sleep in the barn. On her deathbed she mouthed the name Michael to Sister Agnes & she went behind the Michael statue through the tunnel & into the barn. Perhaps the vagrant told her he was an angel or God then raped her? -Thoughts?
shareThats an idea, cathvin. I personally can't put the ending together. I watched this movie twice and the very end throws me off.
Also, if she know a guy came to her in the barn and "layed on top" of her and she admitted in the end that she knew completely about the baby....then why in the begining does she say that she "doesn't know anythng about the baby"?? Aren't nuns supposed to be very truthful? She knows shes lying, right?
I guess I just don't get it, and what the ending truly is suppose to be.
Agnes' abusive mother had warned her about having a baby, so I believe she blocked out the conception, pregnancy, birth & 'giving it back to God'. In the beginning when she denied knowing about the baby she probably didn't, she'd buried it in her subconscious. If she denied the event, it didn't exist & couldn't hurt her. But then during hypnosis the truth came out. -On her deathbed Sister Paul mouthed the name 'Michael' so Agnes would go to the tunnel entrance behind the statue of Michael & check on? or perhaps tell the man that Sister Paul was dead? This also has me wondering...was this man just a wandering vagrant or could he have been a relative of Sister Paul's & she was letting him stay or hide there? I would think Sister Paul would've been more protective of Agnes & not let her be alone w/the man, but if he was a relative maybe she trusted that he wouldn't do such a thing to her. She was raped in a manner which would assure her compliance, he told her he was God. -Agnes' behavior throughout the movie, seeing her dead mother, singing in 'the lady's' voice, convince me that she's unbalanced. After surviving her mother's abuse then finally finding peace in the convent it's shattered when she is raped & becomes pregnant. Agnes blocks all this out but cannot block out her swelling breasts & growing stomach during the pregnancy, this is when she tells Mother Suprior she's too fat to get into heaven. I'm never sure how her palms spontaneousely bleed but she may have done that herself to avoid further discussion.
shareAgnes's bleeding palms are known as "stigmata", spontaneous wounds arising in the parts of the body that Jesus is alleged to have been pierced at his crucifixion. Stigmata are a well-documented phenomenon, found in persons who are exceptionally devout and who identify extremely closely with their Saviour. Of course, some have ben fakes, but many have been genuine. How the mind actually produces this is still unknown.
shareI think Agnes knew and was aware of everything the whole time. I think she wanted to forget, so she told everyone she didn't know anything about it. Besides, Miriam would have told her not to speak about it to anyone.
Agnes' worry about getting fat happened a year before her pregnancy. That scene was meant to show that Agnes has relatively 'young' thinking... she's in her twenties and a nun, versed in the Holy Scriptures and studying their meaning every day, but still thinks "Suffer the little children" means one must suffer like a little child. It's an easy mistake to make, but for a nun ... not so much. And I'm sure Agnes (or her mom or both) was a devotee of Ste. Therese, which doesn't make it any easier to sort out, 'cause Therese was all about 'be like a little child'.
Marie-Paul's behavior was ambiguous too. Did she tell Agnes to connect with the guy because she thought he was God, or because she knew he wasn't and she wanted Agnes to have a different life with love and children and stuff? It never occurred to me that the man might have been a relative of Marie-Paul's. Maybe she thought he and Agnes could run off and be okay together.
Agnes isn't lying; she is so psychotic that she believes that a male person demonstrating affection must be God. Her mind has closed over the reality of the baby, for it is simply far too painful for her to remember. Denial is one of the oldest and most primitive defence mechanisms of the human mind.
The ending- well, unlike most films which wrap things up nicely for the audience, this one doesn't let us off the hook so lightly. We are forced to confront the fact that some things will forever be a mystery, and some people are beyond all help of leading a "normal" existence. Agnes stays in the only place where she can truly belong, wrapped in her mystical visions, completely unaware of evil and happy in her ignorance. It is the mentally "normal" people who suffer on her behalf. Actually, in a way, I envied Agne's eventual fate, which was to remain a child for ever, blussfully ignorant of what the world is really like. Concomitantly with that envy was a rage against the unknown seducer who took advantage of her innocence and left her to her plight.
A powerful, wrenching film, it haunted my memory for days after first seeing it.
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