Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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35 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Magical, mysterious and sinister..., 7 May 2007
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.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Many questions, not enough answers, 5 Dec 2007
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.
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20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"Obedience is the only path to happiness", 9 April 2006
"Innocence" is an intriguing film from start to finish and it manages to generate a strong sense of mystery through it's haunting imagery and other-worldly cinematography. There is a strong Tarkovskian feel about "Innocence" ,set as it is in a forest with a series of images of running water, birds singing and quadrupeds roaming. "Innocence" also possesses the type of surreal and perplexing scenes similar to those seen in the excellent "Mulholland Drive". I am thinking about the theatre scene ,obviously , but the whole film has the same sort of wonderful, abstract ,disconnected air about it. There is not much of a story to "Innocence" , which explores relationships between a group of 6-11 year old girls attending an isolated boarding school in the middle of a forest. The pre-teens in "Innocence" live in a strictly hierarchical world bereft of any male presence and they are inculcated by their teachers with values of obedience ,conformity and group loyalty. Perhaps the psychological framework into which these children are moulded by their teachers provides the viewer with an insight into, and perhaps even acts as an allegory for ,the collectivist , conformist sameness displayed in the mindset of your typical ,Amazonian ,adult female today ? Or perhaps not. "Innocence" doesn't really provide any clear answers for the viewer , who is left to interpret this film in their own subjective way. "Innocence" has been accused of being borderline paedophilia and certainly there are numerous scenes of pre-teen girls prancing about in a state of undress and manifold up-skirt ,white panty shots. However the images were in no way erotic. One has to give credit to the director for creating a stylish, original film and attaining some excellent performances from a cast of very young girls who possessed no acting experience prior to the making of "Innocence".
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2.0 out of 5 stars
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2.0 out of 5 stars
Seems to be rather pointless
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2.0 out of 5 stars
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3.0 out of 5 stars
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5.0 out of 5 stars
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