Innocence (2004/II)

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:

Pliés

Haunting and imbued with a dreamy, meditative veneer

The final title, "for Gaspar" (Noe, director of IRREVERSIBLE), hints at the pedigree of the makers of this quite fascinating study of young girls on the cusp of adolescence.

Benoit Debie, the cinematographer of IRREVERSIBLE, shot the film.

Six year old Iris (Zoe Auclair) arrives at her new country school in a coffin. She becomes infatuated with twelve-year-old Bianca (Berangare Haubruge) who disappears each evening and returns in the morning. The girls spend most of their days studying ballet and preparing for an important exam.

The school is like a keep. The girls are encouraged to find happiness in obedience. Parents never visit. The world beyond its tall hedges exists like something within a dream.

Director Lucile Hadzihalilovic imbues every aspect of the film with a dreamy, meditative veneer. Shots of the pre-teen nymphs dancing, cartwheeling and splashing about in shallow water recall the grainy erotic imagery of David Hamilton's early feature films -- in particular, LAURA and BILITIS. The ballet sequences and striking compositions of solitary female figures in towering external landscapes owe a small debt to Dario Argento's SUSPIRIA and, to a lesser extent, his PHENOMENA. But this is not a deliberate softcore meditation on childhood sexuality. It is a metaphorical examination of how innocence is ruptured by its own curiosity.

The camera angles stress the importance and prominence of legs to a fetishistic degree. This focus is an organic extension of the girls' ballet training; a darker purpose for legs is indicated later in a chilling line of dialogue. Debie's cinematography emphasizes light and shade and is never pretty for its own sake.

The forest filled with lamps has a deliciously surreal, fairytale quality. The sequences where the girls dance for a faceless audience reminded me of one of MULHOLLAND DRIVE's most haunting sequences. The film's sound design also echoes the internal voids of the Lynchian world.

The film is not big on explanations and is a touch too slow at times, but it presents a thoroughly realized universe that is a stark metaphor for life's discoveries and disappointments. The performances possess perfect pitch and the tone remains both haunting and consistent.

What exactly is the film about? The girls may be in a purgatory of sorts, a resting place between life and death. Perhaps not. Perhaps they are in a holding pattern between childhood (innocence) and adulthood (a state requiring some loss of innocence), and when they manage to escape (succumbing to their pre-adolescent curiosity), they have forfeited their place in childhood forever. But only perhaps.