Innocence (2004/II)

User Rating:

6.9/10   

Director:

Lucile Hadzihalilovic

Writers:

Lucile Hadzihalilovic (writer)
Frank Wedekind (novella)

Release Date:

12 January 2005 (France)

Genre:

Drama | Mystery

Plot:

A look inside an offbeat boarding school for young girls. |

Plot Keywords:

Boarding School | Dream Like | Water Fountain | Coming Of Age | Dance Recital

Awards:

8 wins

Cast

Zoé Auclair	...	Iris
Bérangère Haubruge	...	Bianca
Lea Bridarolli	...	Alice
Marion Cotillard	...	Mademoiselle Eva
Hélène de Fougerolles	...	Mademoiselle Edith
Alisson Lalieux	...	Selma
Astrid Homme	...	Rose
Ana Palomo-Diaz	...	Nadja
Olga Peytavi-Müller	...	Laura
Joséphine Van Wambeke	...	Vera
Véronique Nordey	...	Chateau Attendant
Johanna Surbier	...	Fanny
Corinne Marchand	...	Headmistress
Sonia Petrovna	...	Headmistress's Assistant
Micheline Hadzihalilovic	...	Madeleine

Also Known As:

L'école (France) (working title)

MPAA:

Rated R for some sexual content and brief nudity involving a minor.

Runtime:

122 min | Argentina:115 min (Mar del Plata Film Festival)

Country:

Belgium | France | UK | Japan

Language:

French

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Certification:

Finland:K-11 | Brazil:14 | USA:R | Switzerland:7 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:7 (canton of Vaud) | Japan:PG-12 | Argentina:13 | UK:15

Filming Locations:

Belgium

Company:

Ex Nihilo

Movie Connections:

Version of The Fine Art of Love: Mine Ha-Ha (2005)

Soundtrack:

Return to Misty Mountain

A wonderful, unexpected surprise

Amazing. Not for all tastes, to be sure, but infinitely intriguing and accomplished. Great movie. After all the previous not totally successful, or barely watchable or downright awful fantasy movies that have come out of France in the last five years or so, French cinema turns out to be capable of producing an intelligent, beautiful, original work of art with its roots in the fantasy field which is both a treat to the eye and intelligence, and a graphically arresting piece of movie making. The film, dealing with strange ongoings at a remote boarding school for young girls in a mystery-ridden forest somewhere, is incredibly catching, full of hypnotic images. It is indeed closer to the spirit of silent movies, in particular the German school of Fritz Lang, Murnau, Pabst, etc, than to most modern movies. But so brilliant and respectful in its approach that it soon makes you forget its origins. The are dreamlike visions by the dozen in Innocence, superior or equal to Lynch's best films, to Jackson's Heavenly Creatures, or to Jane Campion's cinema in its finer moments, for instance. A painter in terms of framing and composition, the director is always lifting the material up into poetry country. See it and you will not be left untouched. Few films ever reach that kind of weirdness and movie magic. It has no comparison. Really.