Customer Reviews:
Many questions, not enough answers.......2007-12-05
If Lucile Hadzihalilovic was aiming for an enigmatic debut with Innocence - then she's certainly succeeded!
The film is set in the micro-reality of a private school cut off from the rest of the world by a surrounding wall. The girls in the school arrive in a coffin to begin their stay. Sounds dark? The feeling continues.
They have no visitors, in fact; no contact with the outside world whatsoever. They have a hierarchical system identified by coloured hair ribbons - red, for example; represents the youngest girls.
With the highly sexualised culture we live in, you can't but feel slightly uncomfortable at the sight of the near naked girls bathing in a lake, and the various other scenes involving more than the usual amount of flesh. This seems to complement the title perfectly - "Innocence" - there is nothing sexual about the scenes, nothing untoward, there is nothing to be uncomfortable about. There is only one scene which could be labelled sexual, but it is a very tasteful moment involving an older girl experimenting with the feel of velvet against her skin.
The general eeriness of the film is fortified by the lack of verbal communication, especially from adults - there must only be 5 or 6 minutes of adult dialogue. There is a sense of unease amongst the tutors and you try to imagine how the cause of this will all be revealed at the end.
Who put the girls in the school? Why aren't they allowed out until they hit puberty? Who are the late night ballet performances for? You start to think the unthinkable, especially when during a late night performance a girl catches a flower from a hidden audience member and is told she is the prettiest girl on stage.
So many questions posed - but unfortunately never answered.
I love a film which encourages you to think, but sometimes it seems lazy to not offer any sort of explanation. You think back to the long scenes and try to think if you saw any clues as to the school's mission, but nothing comes to mind.
In a nutshell: Beautifully shot, lengthy scenes with some dark moments and an overall dark feel. This film ends though without satisfying your protective parental instincts about the girls. At least there is an upbeat scene at the end to stop it ending on a low.
Magical, mysterious and sinister..........2007-05-07
I had never heard of this film before i picked it off the shelf, so I had no idea what to expect.
It's based on 'Mine-Haha, or the Physical Education of Young Girls', by a German playwright named Frank Wedekind. The plot revolves around a boarding school for girls roughly aged 5 or 6 up until they hit puberty, in the middle of a dense forest.
As soon as the film starts, it fills the viewer with a sense of foreboding, with a long, flickery opening featuring a child-sized coffin and no music, but a deep, ominous rumbling sound instead. That combined with the next scene, of girls in identical white uniforms opening the coffin to reveal thier new, living, companion, certainly made me expect some kind of sinister nightmare. I, like many other viewers, was concerned that it would turn out to be a film about paedophillia, and I was waiting with bated breath for some true horror to come around the corner.
But actually, there are no monsters or paedophiles, but rather a distinct lack of sexual innuendos. The film really is about innocence. The celebration of young girls in the film would only a few decades ago have seemed totally unremarkable, before such images were so sexualised as they sometimes are nowadays. The subject of developing female sexuality is indeed touched on, especially towards the end, but not in nearly as sinister a manner as one might expect.
The school takes on a life of its own. On the one hand its a child's paradise, where the girls can play and practice dance and gymnastics among the trees and swim in the lake, in between exciting lessons. But it also feels like a prison. It is inescapable, and those who try to escape meet a tragic fate or are never spoken of again. There are many dark elements, including mysterious underground tunnels, and strange sounds which come from beneath the lake. The headmistress takes one blue-ribboned girl a year away from the school, based more on neck length and beauty than dance talent or intelligence.
The imagery is magical and very original, from the lamp-lit trees at night to the ominous red curtain. The cinematography is breathtaking, and gives the film a dreamlike fantasy missing from other films of a similar genre.
Innocence is essentially a film about the magic of young girls and thier own utopian world. It touches on thier emotional and sexual development and the authoritarian structure of the school system, with a sense of anticipation and unease pervading the whole film, reflecting the emotions of a young girl going into puberty, with a suprisingly optimistic ending.
I, for one, absoloutely loved it.
Seems to be rather pointless.......2007-02-07
Usually I don't mind a subtitled French film with an entirely female cast. But to me the film Innocence seems to be rather pointless. I mean, there not really much story, dialogue, or plot to the film that I could identify with. All I saw was a group of young French girls dressed in white, who spent half of there time semi-naked in the woods playing. Now I have to say that there are a few emotion evoking scenes in Innocence. When all the girls help to teach the youngest how to swim for example. But other than that I didn't really understand what was going on. When the film ended nearly two hours later, I was left with a lot of unanswered questions. Did one of the characters ever get reunited with her younger brother? Where exactly were they and why? Were the stories about the punishments true? And what was with all the new girls arriving in a coffin about. A friend of mine told me that it is meant to be symbolic, with the coffin representing a kind of rebirth for the girls entering the 'school.' But to me it's just a coffin and something else which had me scratching my head. I feel that the writer and director attempted something ground breaking, and wanted us viewers to enter the world and mind of a child and experience their innocence. Sadly (maybe because I was never a little girl) I can't relate or understand the film. I applaud the film makers for trying something different and difficult, but the film just doesn't work for me. I've given it two stars for it's mystery, location, and a few good scenes. Other than that I can't recommend this film to you.
innocence.......2006-08-04
Innocence for me was a big let down. After reading some reviews I expected a very good film and for much of it this is what you get. The actors (mostly children) are very good and the camera work and settings are fantastic, however i found that towards the end i was bored enough not to care what happened. Which, as it turns out, didn't matter because not much happened anyway. Many of the mysterious sub-plots were left unanswered and while a degree of mystery is good this was simply not ending the film.
Beautiful, but ultimately unfulfilling.......2006-07-16
I wouldn't say i 'enjoyed' this film, but it was intriguing, which drew me into the story. The cinematography is stunning, and the design of the concepts themselves merit a watch. However, If you like films with answers, then this isn't suitable for you. It's deeply mysterious to the end. In my opinion just a little too mysterious. The viewer is very much left to make their own interpretations, but i don't think quite enough information is given to do that. Ultimately i found it quite an unfulfilling film, even though i was left pondering over just what it meant for days! It's not a poor film by any means, it's just an acquired taste.
Customer Reviews:
Best horror ever?.......2007-07-14
Basic plot. A killer has taped over a bad horror movie and has recorded his own diaries on it. While the viewer views him we see what type of person he is and follow him when he makes his killings. An amazing film shot all in cam corder style with lots of shots of the killer talking to the audience questioning us on our views of horror and him as a person. A smart and quite nasty horror which will make you think for a long time after viewing. If you like films like man bites dog its the horror version of that. A must see for all horror fans.
UK DVD:
- In This World [2003]
- Jane Eyre [1944] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
- Japanese Story [2004]
- Jean Cocteau Collection
- Jesus Of Montreal [1989]
- La Belle Captive: A Film by Alain Robbe-Grillet [1983] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
- La Belle Noiseuse [1991]
- Latter Days
- Les Destinees Sentimentales [2000]
- Less Than Zero [1987]
UK DVD List
UK DVD
![Innocence [2005]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/312PGHXT3QL.jpg)
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