Where was she going to?
At the end of the movie, she decided to go somewhere. where?
sharePresumably she left and helped with the resistance against the German occupation.
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MovieChat Forums > The Nun's Story (1959) Discussion > Where was she going to?
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I would say back to the Dr. in Africa
share[deleted]
For some reason, I got the feeling that she went back home.
shareA novel? I thought this was a true story...
shareI agree with myohdrpepper, she was going back to the Congo.
sharei was hoping she would go back to the congo. but i couldn't see how she would, thinking about it practically, it would be more obvious if she were to join the resistance
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OOOOH MATRON!
In the final seconds of the film, she stands at the end of the cul de sac leading out of the convent… hesitates… looks left… then decides to go right. In short, she hesitates between Peter Finch and the Underground. And it's up to us to decide which side is which.
shareI don't think she'd go back to the doctor. The true life character she was based on was gay, and ended up in a relationship with the woman who wrote the book!
shareits a nice thought though. adds a sense of romance. breakfast at tiffany's didn't go the way the book did after all
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OOOOH MATRON!
I think the book did a better job of resoulving this. She ends up going to help the resistance as her father and I believe her brother both died fighting in the war. The book ends with her getting a id as a "civilian" instead of the one she carried as a nun.
shareNote that at the very end of the film, as Gabby was stepping down the step from the "changing room" into the alley, she started to gather the hem of her skirts. The nun's habit was long and therefore she had been taught to gather the hem up when it might drag acoss a surface so it wouldn't get worn. (In one scene in the film, a performer DID let her hem drag when she should have gathered it! Gasp!) Gabrielle felt odd in the modern street clothes after so many many years of wearing the habit.
Read the book if you love this movie. It will make you love the movie more.
John Martin, 45, Texas
(first saw the movie at 15; read select parts of the book in my high school library at about that time; purchased and read an original copy of the book at about 28; continued to love the story over the last 30 years and that makes me so "smart" here ;)
Definately not going to the doctor, she is going to join the resistance.
share[deleted]
Knowledge of the the true story, which is that she went to work for the Resistance, aside: if you know your history then you have to know that she could not have returned to the Congo and that she went to work with Resistance. Because During the war Belgium's Nazi occupiers prohibited overseas travel by Belgians (almost all of Europe was under the Nazi heel); moreover, the Nazis couldn't have shipped anyone out through the British blockade: the Nazi navy could scarcely defend itself, let alone could it have protected seagoing merchant convoys or single ships. The Nazis were able only to maintain coastal merchant vessel traffic, and much of that they conducted at night to avoid Allied air and naval attacks.
The other clue in the film is that the young about-to-be postulant hospital staffer hands to Sister Luke the address of a Resistance person or group, says to her, "The Resistance needs nurses too." This is why, as Sister Luke signs herself out of the convent and the Mother Superior asks her, "Have you someplace to go?", Gabrielle nods affirmatively.
Yes, as I would imagine in movie-land she would join the Resistance first, then return to the Congo after the war.
shareThank you. I was going to post the same reply. You saved me the bother.
What in the world were some of those responders thinking? Obviously, they have no knowledge of WW2 travel problems.
Personally, I'd pick Peter Finch, but at this particular time it would have been unfeasible. The Belgian Congo was not controlled by the Germans during the war as Belgium itself was. It would have been extremely difficult for a civilian woman to leave Belgium to go to the Congo just because she wanted to. More than likely, Gabrielle went offf to join the Resistance
shareI was hoping that first she'd go to the Resistance, then back to the Congo where she'd work for, and marry, Dr. Fortunati.
shareThis is a response for the movie, not the book, and not the real story either.
The way the film is presented, she clearly had fallen in love with the doctor and he seemed to return her feelings to a degree. They were still corresponding through letters after she had returned to Europe.
Her decision to leave the convent was brought on by the war, but the doctor was still a consideration on her part. Anyways, when she left there would be no way for her to return to the Congo at that time, it was 1944 and the Nazis were controlling everything.
As everyone's already pointed out, the real woman did leave the convent and help with the resistance. (Also, an interesting side-note that no one else seems to have mentioned - Audrey Hepburn herself helped with the resistance when she was a little girl in Belgium and the Netherlands). It was important work that had to be done, and since the Congo wasn't a real possibility at that time, she probably went that route. But remember, she left in 1944, the war ended in 1945. What happened AFTER that is where some of the speculating goes.
The way the film is portrayed, she probably went back to the Congo, since it was where she felt happiest (not just the doctor, but the work itself was her true love). Whether she and the doctor ever got married is up to the realists/romantics to decide.
I don't care about money. I just want to be wonderful. - Marilyn Monroe
I never once felt that Sister Luke was in love with the doctor, it was only respect, I think she obviously went to help the underground, I could see her going back to the Congo at some point after the war, but that would be many years later.
sharemaybe she wasn't in love with the doctor but he was open and honest about everything and maybe she saw in herself what she wanted. After all she thought she would be working at the native hospital not the WHITE hospital and I think her heart was there
shareI always felt this was an extraordinary love. But only with extraordinary difficulty could it become a successful romantic love.
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Please put some dashes above your sig line so I won't think it's part of your dumb post.
I think when she got that money back from the nuns she had the resources to do whatever she wanted,now that her dad was dead
shareThe movie plot includes some romantic tension between the nun and the doctor. The novel does not include that subplot and the real woman on whom the story is based worked for the resistance and eventually went to the USA. Sister Luke was given an address to go to the resistance if she chose. Sister Luke had shown interest in the resistance, especially after her father was killed. That seems the most likely direction she was heading, but it is left open to suggestion in the final scene. Viewers of the time would have been more familiar with the novel and the facts it was based on and probably conclued she was headed for the resistance. On the other hand, people like the unexpected romantic turn in movies, so logic can fly out the window.
i always assumed and my mum said that she went to back to the congo to be with the doctor and help
shareIn the book, she has a cup of coffee at a cafe, and then goes to work at the underground.
shareAccording to the wonderful book by Kathryn Hulme, "just 8 weeks from that morning in August of '44 ... she was going to be there in the uniform of an English army medical outfit, worrying then no more of how she walked or talked but only of the bodies that might still be breathing in the traps of rubble through which she crawled, the Belgian underground was recruiting nurses their their medical corps..."
Certainly there is no hint that she would have attempted to return to the Congo and I disagree with those who thought she would, it says (again) at the point where she is leaving the convent in the book, that her memories of the Congo, Mother Mathilde and Emil would have tortured her if she allowed herself to think of them. I don't think she would have allowed them to know her fate.
It is possible to find out the story of the 'real Sister Luke' (Marie-Louise Habets) on the net for those interested.
I don't think she'd go back to the Congo. Whatever feelings she had for the doctor, he apparently didn't feel the same. It would've been very awkward to work at the hospital as a civilian after being there as a nun.
I think it was to that underground address (after a visit home to visit her siblings).
A nice alternate ending (if only it happened for real ) would've been she joined another order of nuns...one not so strict.
Apparently? He made is obvious he liked her, even before we knew she liked him.
Atticus told me to delete the adjectives and I'd have the facts.
I agree, I thought the doctor had feelings for her and if she had feelings for him, she was struggling against them because she wanted to be a good nun.
shareWhat I gleaned fom the doctor was his great admiration for a woman who managed to succeed despite her great struggles internally and externally. And knowing her struggles, he would respect her boundaries and not be the 'corruptor'.
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