Innocence

The final title, "for Gaspar" (Noe, director of IRREVERSIBLE), hints at the pedigree of the makers of this quite fascinating study of young girls on the cusp of adolescence.

Benoit Debie, the cinematographer of IRREVERSIBLE, shot the film.

Six year old Iris (Zoe Auclair) arrives at her new country school in a coffin. She becomes infatuated with twelve-year-old Bianca (Berangare Haubruge) who disappears each evening and returns in the morning. The girls spend most of their days studying ballet and preparing for an important exam.

The school is like a keep. The girls are encouraged to find happiness in obedience. Parents never visit. The world beyond its tall hedges exists like something within a dream.

Director Lucile Hadzihalilovic imbues every aspect of the film with a dreamy, meditative veneer. Shots of the pre-teen nymphs dancing, cartwheeling and splashing about in shallow water recall the grainy erotic imagery of David Hamilton's early feature films -- in particular, LAURA and BILITIS. The ballet sequences and striking compositions of solitary female figures in towering external landscapes owe a small debt to Dario Argento's SUSPIRIA and, to a lesser extent, his PHENOMENA. But this is not a deliberate softcore meditation on childhood sexuality. It is a metaphorical examination of how innocence is ruptured by its own curiosity.

The camera angles stress the importance and prominence of legs to a fetishistic degree. This focus is an organic extension of the girls' ballet training; a darker purpose for legs is indicated later in a chilling line of dialogue. Debie's cinematography emphasizes light and shade and is never pretty for its own sake.

The forest filled with lamps has a deliciously surreal, fairytale quality. The sequences where the girls dance for a faceless audience reminded me of one of MULHOLLAND DRIVE's most haunting sequences. The film's sound design also echoes the internal voids of the Lynchian world.

The film is not big on explanations and is a touch too slow at times, but it presents a thoroughly realized universe that is a stark metaphor for life's discoveries and disappointments. The performances possess perfect pitch and the tone remains both haunting and consistent.

What exactly is the film about? The girls may be in a purgatory of sorts, a resting place between life and death. Perhaps not. Perhaps they are in a holding pattern between childhood (innocence) and adulthood (a state requiring some loss of innocence), and when they manage to escape (succumbing to their pre-adolescent curiosity), they have forfeited their place in childhood forever. But only perhaps.

Reading a lot of the interesting comments people have made about this film, it's obvious most didn't understand it.I admit this includes me. I enjoy an original idea for a movie, one that makes you think, but if it is too obscure surely that defeats the object? A lot of the comments mention paedophiles, an overused word that's fashionable at the moment.I'm a bloke but ye Gods, these were tiny little girls and not sexual. Someone mentioned the bathing and said they were uncomfortable with it. Nobody was nude! If a scene such as this makes a person less than happy, I suggest it says a lot about that person's mind. David Hamilton's 'Bilitis' has a scene where a group of schoolgirls strip off and go gamboling in the sea, that is certainly done, (in my view) to titillate. Innocence isn't at all like that. Europeans such as the French and Germans have, it seems to me, a lot healthier attitude to sex than either the Brits' or the US who tend to look for an ulterior motive in anything. Having said that- There is an interview with director Lucile Hadzihalilovic on the DVD, in it she mentions words to describe the movie, such as paradise, prison, nature, appealing and interesting.She says the film is essentially sensual and a claustrophobic universe. Also says that there is no violence and nothing offensive in it. It interested me to hear her say that women would identify with it easier than men, as their own view of young girls will be evoked. For some that may be problematic, for others, not at all. Read in that what you will chaps. There are few sights more pleasurable than a happy female, (of any age.) I remember an old saying, - 'Little girls, like butterflies, need no excuse.'

We watched this film during my Film History and Theory class this past Thursday and aside from shoddy presentation (the projector was absolutely horrible and displayed the film too dark), I have to say that I enjoyed this quite a bit. At first, I almost dismissed it as artsy, pretentious French cinema due to the very slow pace and methodical direction but it had this eerie quality to it that kept my eyes glued to the screen, anticipating what was yet to come. The story is told in a very abstract way and the story is never really laid out for you in a conventional manner. In truth, it is a very simple tale but told in an imaginative way. There was great imagery and the use of sound to create a mysterious environment was very well done. At times it reminded me of the films of David Lynch, (especially Lost Highway and Mulholland Dr.) and Gaspar Noe (Irreversible), which is probably why I enjoyed it so much. The acting by the principals is very good, considering that they consisted mainly of very young girls. The director managed to capture natural performances from all of them and having worked with children on films in the past, I have to applaud her efforts on this end as I know how difficult it can be to get them to give you the results you're looking for. From a negative stance, the film runs just a bit too long and the pacing could've been trimmed a little to make it run a bit faster and leaner. There were stretches where the film felt like it was never going to end. In the end, I would definitely recommend this to those who appreciate art-house cinema as this caters directly to them. This was an impressive debut for Ms. Hadzihalilovic and I am definitely curious to see what she comes up with next.

RATING: ***1/2 out of *****.

Offbeat? This film is so far removed from offbeat, that previous films described as offbeat are marching in military step unison. Innocence is a gorgeous composition of thought, sound and beauty which is utterly compelling to watch but challenges the viewing audience to a hard fought internal battle, raising questions within the viewer, in a William Blake-ish "Songs Of Innocence, Songs Of Experience" manner.

Undoubtedly the cinematography is some of the most striking that has been put to film certainly this side of the millennium, as Hadzihalilovic manages to compose wonderful shots of serene beauty within a hidden sense of malice and darkness. His symbolic use of colours is highly key to the understanding of the events, themes and emotions and aids the viewer immensely in being able to 'try' (and I emphasis the word) and dissect the layers of thought provoking connotations on the nature of innocence.

It's not always the most comfortable film to be viewing, as certain IMDb reviewers would hasten to claim it has "pedophilic tendencies", but I fear they're somewhat missing the point of the entire film; yes it is often at times difficult to view, but there is a purpose. William Blakes collection of poems on innocence and experience charts the replacing of the former with the latter. He shows us how innocence cannot be appreciated til you are experienced, but how experience completely taints any notion of innocence, and the same is with this precise film. These unsettling moments for us are only so because of the experience which we possess and have learnt throughout our existence, to the girls they don't see the same sins, pitfalls and traps we do, to them they are merely acting on instinct, as children do, in an innocent, cares- of the world-free way.

Thus the film charts the fall of innocence from the elder girls at the hauntingly constructed boarding school, and the continuing of the cycle through metamorphic symbolism, the circle of young life. Although it does make me question the use of the word "film". If I had but one criticism of the film, for all its mesmerising viewing and original premise it comes across more as a case study in innocence rather than a fully fledged story. While undeniably engaging and engrossing it lacks a certain spark, becoming more concerned with the ideas than the progression of any one story, to the extent where the ideas will be ringing in your head for days afterwards, but lacking a sense of resolution. Innocence would be an impressive debut solely on the basis of bravery alone for tackling such a notion, and so effectively, but the hallmarking of this 'case study' comes in the directors striking use of colours, symbolism and cinematography which I personally believe to have been unsurpassed in the films I've seen of recent years. Although you have been warned, the film is an intense experience which will not set well with everyone, but given that you have now been warned, so it's not as if you can claim you were innocent of that.

There can't be many films that occupy your mind for many days afterwards, make you read the book they are based on, and then watch them again.

"Innocence" is one of those films and it is both beautiful and intriguing at the same time. It is based on a book by Frank Wedekind called "Mine-Haha or the corporeal education of girls", the only published fragment of his unfinished novel "Hildalla". It was first published in 1901 and although beautifully written it has much darker undertones than the film with references to a body cult of youth and natural beauty which would later become exploited by Nazi culture.

The film is very much a metaphor for a childhood world which is in many ways separate but also protected from that of adults. It plays in an isolated Girls School their children enter at the time when they start to make their own independent experiences of the world around them and ends with the onset of puberty and attainment of menarche, both symbolising the emotional and physical end of childhood. The cinematography is beautiful and reminded me in many ways of Tarkovsky with its symbolism and haunting images. However, the story can seem a little simplistic and linear times and often appears to demand more depth from the young child actors than they could possibly deliver.

Nevertheless this is a very interesting and thought-provoking film and well worth watching. The French dialogue often has a musical quality and as long as you're prepared to watch this in a calm and unhurried state of mind this is very rewarding and unusual cinematic experience.