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The Film: Innocence
The Cast: Zoé Auclair, Laisson Lalieux, Astrid Homme, Lea Bridarolli
The Director: Lucile Hadzihalilovic
2004, Belgium/France/UK

The Plot: It’s the story a 6 year old Iris, who finds herself getting out of a coffin and getting in to a boarding school. Set within a woodland forest, the school itself is simultaneously an idyll and a prison. Bianca, the oldest student, introduces Iris to this strange world where there are neither men nor adults except the old servants and two teachers. Iris quickly discovers the rules of the school where teaching centers on dance, physical education and biology. Obedience is paramount and one can see that the girls are getting prepared for something…

Innocence is based on a late 19th-century novella with the curious title of “Mine-Haha”, or “The Corporal Education of Young Girls”, by the German writer Frank Wedekind. The director creates a world oscillating between realism and fantasy through astute lighting, intense colors, and virtually no background music.

“Innocence” is all about transformation–through the seasons, through rituals, through the entrance into womanhood. And yet, this is what I say. The movie is largely allegorical, and doesn’t tell you much. In the end, it is up to each one what they make of it.

Is it depicting transition from childhood to adolescence, a feministic look on female objectification, or a cynical look at the reproductive role women fulfill once they grow up? Full of symbolism, the most striking is the use of butterflies, used time and again that is used to represent the girls and perhaps is a subtle reminder of the transition from the caterpillar stage to a butterfly.

Puberty tends to sneak up on innocents, doesn’t it? The greatest victory of this brilliant debut feature is that it perfectly captures the suspense of this adolescent anticipation, giving the viewer the perspective of the innocent grasping for clues that everyone else seems to know already! The effect is fascinating and frustrating, making you powerlessness, impatient, and dreading every minute in anticipation. Sometimes reminding us of Lynch, the visuals are breathtaking and devastating at the same time.

The film works for me, and yet I know it requires a lot of patience to watch and at the end, a lot of questions might remain unanswered, so it is safest to recommend it only to the most devout of cinema goers.

Watch it, because it fills your heart with joy and yet makes it heavier by the minute… at the same time.

Watch it, because Hadzihalilovic fills the film with a sense of mystery, of terror and anxiety as well as happiness. Much like the pre pubertal phase in life.

Watch it, for the little girls dressed in white, with just different coloured ribbons to tell them apart…the colours being those of a rainbow…

Watch it, for it’s a sheer treat for some of us who seek symbolism under every rock and thrive on allegories…while the rest might find it too cryptic and may be left scratching their heads!

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