Innocence (**1/2)
review by Jon
Waterman
Iris is the newest addition to a distant boarding school for
young girls. She arrived just like all the others do, by coffin.
She doesn’t know where she is, how she got there, or
why she’s not allowed to leave or speak to her family.
So, she must make the most of it and learn from the adult teachers.
This ain’t your typical summer camp. Maybe if she studies
hard and bides her time well, she’ll be able to escape.
That is, if she still wants to.
The film starts off slightly reminiscent of “Le Jetée” by
showing us a series of beautiful “stills” leading
from the water through a tunnel and up to the room with the
tiny coffin in the center. From there we move into full motion,
but the shots maintain this strangely artistic quality with
unique spots of visual interest in each frame. That’s
about all the movie has going for it, unfortunately.
The film plays out very slowly, but is still pretty interesting
for a while. That is until you realize that everything you’re
seeing is an unsolvable mystery with little or no clues, that
it just gets to be boring. All the girls wear the same outfit
except for different colored bows that they wear so you can
tell them apart (sort of like “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”).
The three teachers conduct lessons in ballet, biology and physical
education. The place is isolated to the extreme. And that’s
about all you really know. It can be pretty tough to figure
out where the movie is headed for quite a while as well, especially
when they switch focus from the Iris story to one of Alice,
an older girl.
The kids are horrible actors and they can’t possibly
deliver the goods when called upon to show real emotions, not
even during the funeral pyre scene. I’m sort of glad
there are such long stretches without dialogue. However, spoken
lines would come in handy in helping us understand the emotional
bond between Iris and the oldest girl Bianca. All of a sudden
Iris just becomes completely infatuated with her.
Writer/Director Lucile Hadzihalilovic has created an incredible
looking backdrop for her unusual tale of wonder and, well,
innocence in all forms. The long dance sequences look sort
of like “The Red Shoes” Jr. Unfortunately, the
film runs too long (115 minutes), there are too many unanswered
questions at the end, and it’s just a little too cryptic
for my taste.
respond to jon@filmbrats.com
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