He invited Lady Smith to make various findings in fact, including that many children were deprived of affection at Smyllum, that some were forced to eat, verbally abused, humiliated for wetting the bed and that children of all ages were
assaulted by nuns and staff.
Throughout the film, Sorrentino packs in numerous surrealistic touches, from the sight of a
nun buried up to her neck in sand (accompanied
by an aural
assault on the soundtrack) to a grotesque glimpse of Rizzo with a potato poultice around his head to the jarring sight of Geremia's village, built
by Mussolini on an Italian swampland.