When the British soldiers were kicking Sinead around and cutting off her hair, had she been raped by them previously? Cutting off hair was in past times the punishment of a prostitute, a way to humiliate her. So were the creeps doubly humiliating her, first by raping her and then by implying that it was her fault?
I'm not sure how else to see that particular scene, given her violent struggle to get away from the soldiers.
Although it may well have happened in the story I saw nothing to imply rape. I saw the shearing as an act of humiliation in retaliation for her known collusion with the IRA.
I'm glad there was no rape. Although such things do happen, I see rape in movies as melodrama, story-telling that appeals to revenge and other base emotions. I see it as a crutch, a shortcut and a poor way of manipulating your audience.
It would be if shown. I agree that there was no indication on screen that they had, but soldiers have been known to brutalize women in situations like that. I was just wondering if we were supposed to assume it had been done off camera.
I, too, hope there wasn't a rape. It would be the straw that broke the camel's back, I think.
I think it was implied. Soldiers, when charged with the task of tormenting civilians have often raped women. Some fairly recent examples are the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, Muslim women in the Serbian conflict, pretty much any war or occupation you can think of, there is rape. If you look hard enough you can find rape videos made by British soldiers in Iraq on the web. Heck, even in peacetime soldiers are raping women they encounter on and off base. I think it hasn't even been considered reprehensible until around the 1970's, in politics I mean.
shareNot strictly accurate, the Soviet soldiers who committed such war crimes in Germany in 1945 were internationally condemned by Politicians and government. I don't think rape as a tool of war has ever been accepted or glossed over.
sharethey probably didn't rape her. she would definitely have been more traumatised after that if she had been raped. not that being scalped isn't traumatic but Sinead seems alright when we see her dancing with Teddy and then later before she gets the letter. also she was still wearing her clothes and the soldiers probably would have ripped them off completely if they were going to rape her. i don't think the guys would have sat there and let her be raped, hair can grow back but i wouldn't sit and watch anyone be raped
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Hi, thanks for all this. I wasn't thinking that they were going to rape her in front of the others, rather that it had already happened. It still seems ambiguous to me, but, yeah, she probably wouldn't have been dancing with Damien and kissing him that soon if she had been raped.
shareInteresting that you bring this up. When my local radio station reviewed the film, they said it included, among other things, a sexual assault which made me wary of seeing it. When a coworker told me she didn't remember anything like that in the film, I went ahead a watched it and there is no on-screen rape. I'm not sure whether it was implied. Obviously, the soldiers did not need to 'rip off all her clothes' to rape her as another poster suggested. Anyway, I don't know but I'm glad Loach didn't take it that far on screen- the scene is brutal enough as it is.
shareOn screen we had the fingernail torture, Sinead's brother murdered in the room beside her and his mother, the principals shooting friend and family. So I think any rape would have been fairly clearly depicted.
I was expecting rape in that scene, and agree with the other posters who maintain the film is a lot better without it. Such a strong event would have devalued the main themes of the movie.
that's what I was thinking. it's such a brutal film that it's hard to imagine it shying away from a clear indication of rape, if not a full blown rape scene
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