tstone
04-18-2006, 02:09 AM
Have you ever thought about the plight of orphans? I have. Imagine growing up in an "institution". No real home, parents of your own. Imagine what that does to a child. Imagine the sort of strength it requires to be a fully realized, healthy adult, even in a good orphanage. Imagine the feeling that someone doesn't love you in that personal way. Now, take that and put it in a massive institution, with alot of kids. Got that? Now, add a bunch more kids, sick, hurt, and because of current circumstances (WWII), many of them not getting the care they need. Imagine them dying, unloved, neglected. Alot of them. And because of how they died, their restless spirits lingering on in the institution where they met their end. They still need love. They long to be cared for.
Enter Anna (Virginie Ledoyen), a mysterious woman, hired as a caretaker to St Ange's. She is to be part of the skeleton crew to keep the pilot light going. The orphans have been moved out of the place, leaving Anna, another caretaker who has worked there for twenty three years and Judith (Lou Doilon), a disturbed girl who knows about the "scary children".
Anna is pregnant, and has been subject to abuse in the past, wherever she came from. She is determined, however, to keep her past secret. But when strange things begin happening at St Ange's (mysterious voices, flickering lights, sounds), she begins poking around the place. She finds a diary behind a false wall panel. She finds pictures hidden in the disused chapel on the orphanage grounds. And she finds out that Judith is on meds. And these meds help block memory from a long time ago. These memories involve a disused level of the orphanage, the infirmary. Something horrible happened down there, something involving the "scary children".
Of course, Anna eventually makes her way to this place. And what happens is truly disturbing.
Good performances, lush outdoors in what is supposed to be the French Alps and a sprawling, creepy mansion that is the orphanage.
It's a spooky one. Check it out.
Enter Anna (Virginie Ledoyen), a mysterious woman, hired as a caretaker to St Ange's. She is to be part of the skeleton crew to keep the pilot light going. The orphans have been moved out of the place, leaving Anna, another caretaker who has worked there for twenty three years and Judith (Lou Doilon), a disturbed girl who knows about the "scary children".
Anna is pregnant, and has been subject to abuse in the past, wherever she came from. She is determined, however, to keep her past secret. But when strange things begin happening at St Ange's (mysterious voices, flickering lights, sounds), she begins poking around the place. She finds a diary behind a false wall panel. She finds pictures hidden in the disused chapel on the orphanage grounds. And she finds out that Judith is on meds. And these meds help block memory from a long time ago. These memories involve a disused level of the orphanage, the infirmary. Something horrible happened down there, something involving the "scary children".
Of course, Anna eventually makes her way to this place. And what happens is truly disturbing.
Good performances, lush outdoors in what is supposed to be the French Alps and a sprawling, creepy mansion that is the orphanage.
It's a spooky one. Check it out.