Innocence
Director: Lucile Hadzihalilovic
Writer: Lucile Hadzihalilovic
Based on: Frank Wedekind‘s novella Mine-Haha oder Über die körperliche Erziehung der jungen Mädchen
Cast: Zoé Auclair, Lea Bridarolli, Bérangère Haubruge, Marion Cotillard, Hélène de Fougerolles, Olga Peytavi-Müller, Corinne Marchand
Seen on: 30.8.2024

Plot:
The school year starts with girls gathering around a coffin, out of which climbs Iris (Zoé Auclair). She is the newest student at the boarding school and the oldest girl in their group, Bianca (Bérangère Haubruge) takes her under her wings. The structures and rules in the school are strange, and Iris doesn’t really know what to make of them.

Innocence is a beautiful film with a dream-like quality that seems made to be discussed and interpreted in many ways. I was thoroughly intrigued by the world it shows us.

Innocence is not a film all that interested in answers. It is much more preoccupied with uncertainty and confusion. We have Iris’ confusion at why she is there in the first place and how things work. As she grows into her role and place there, we can draw parallels to how children in general must see the world, filled with rules they don’t understand but have to follow regardless.

This is heightened by the fact that the rules in that boarding school are also not understood by the audience. We learn that Bianca has to leave the dormitory every day at nine o’clock in the evening, but we don’t know why either. There is a sinister touch to everything that Hadzihalilovic heightens with surreal images, scratchy sounds and the emotional reactions of the two adult teachers that are present.

Most girls are happy to wait out their time in the boarding school, but there are those girls that want to break-out early. Here, too, we can draw parallels to gender-non-conformity. Breaking out is, of course, forbidden and comes with grand penalties indeed.

In the end the film does give us some answers and we are allowed to leave the school. But the answers it gives us don’t actually make that much sense of what came before it. Knowing where the girls go, is not knowing why or what for. And the cycle continues. Given how much I was intrigued by it, I wouldn’t have minded going through another school year either.

Summarizing: atmospheric and chilling.