Customer Reviews
Beware the 'similar items'! - By: Toby, 30 Apr 2008 
Innocence is nothing like the other DVDs you might see in the 'similar items' category. If you're looking for something which blends eroticism with art then this is not the film for you.
If, however, you are looking for a refreshing exploration of childhood then Innocence is the film for you. There are sinister sexual overtones but they are presented as exactly that. This is a film about the beauty of childhood. Hadlizahilovic challlenges the viewer's preconceptions by suggesting & then withdrawing from the notions of sex & paedophilia. The DVD cover is incredibly suggestive but this film is consciously NOT about sex, a fact which leaves the viewer with a refreshingly innocent image of what childhood should be.
Beautifully made but...... - By: Peaches, 20 Mar 2008 
I think this film didn't quite work for me because I was expecting something else, something more menacing in the way of Calvaire. Although this does have a sinister air about it, it is quite a different film.
From time to time, I did find myself getting taken along with it, but untimely I was wondering what it was reallly alll about & why it was made.
I can understand how some may find the viewing uncomfortable, there were moments when I felt it myself. I am not innocent & I know the world we live in.
It is beautifully filmed though, & the children put in such an understated performance, but I couldn't comfortably recommend this film, due to the languid pace of the film & its subject matter being so evasive.
Many questions, not enough answers - By: DangermouseZilla, 05 Dec 2007 
If Lucile Hadzihalilovic was aiming for an enigmatic debut with Innocence - then she's certainly succeeded!
The film is set in the micro-reality of a private school cut off from the rest of the world by a surrounding walll. The girls in the school arrive in a coffin to begin their stay. Sounds dark? The feeling continues.
They have no visitors, in fact; no contact with the outside world whatsoever. They have a hierarchical system identified by coloured hair ribbons - red, for example; represents the youngest girls.
With the highly sexualised culture we live in, you can't but feel slightly uncomfortable at the sight of the near naked girls bathing in a lake, & the various other scenes involving more than the usual amount of flesh. This seems to complement the title perfectly - "Innocence" - there is nothing sexual about the scenes, nothing untoward, there is nothing to be uncomfortable about. There is only one scene which could be labelled sexual, but it is a very tasteful moment involving an older girl experimenting with the feel of velvet against her skin.
The general eeriness of the film is fortified by the lack of verbal communication, especiallly from adults - there must only be 5 or 6 minutes of adult dialogue. There is a sense of unease amongst the tutors & you try to imagine how the cause of this will alll be revealed at the end.
Who put the girls in the school? Why aren't they alllowed out until they hit puberty? Who are the late night balllet performances for? You start to think the unthinkable, especiallly when during a late night performance a girl catches a flower from a hidden audience member & is told she is the prettiest girl on stage.
So many questions posed - but unfortunately never answered.
I love a film which encourages you to think, but sometimes it seems lazy to not offer any sort of explanation. You think back to the long scenes & try to think if you saw any clues as to the school's mission, but nothing comes to mind.
In a nutshell: Beautifully shot, lengthy scenes with some dark moments & an overalll dark feel. This film ends though without satisfying your protective parental instincts about the girls. At least there is an upbeat scene at the end to stop it ending on a low.
Magical, mysterious and sinister... - By: S. Witkowski-Baker, 07 May 2007 
I had never heard of this film before i picked it off the shelf, so I had no idea what to expect.
It's based on 'Mine-Haha, or the Physical Education of Young Girls', by a German playwright named Frank Wedekind. The plot revolves around a boarding school for girls roughly aged 5 or 6 up until they hit puberty, in the middle of a dense forest.
As soon as the film starts, it fills the viewer with a sense of foreboding, with a long, flickery opening featuring a child-sized coffin & no music, but a deep, ominous rumbling sound instead. That combined with the next scene, of girls in identical white uniforms opening the coffin to reveal thier new, living, companion, certainly made me expect some kind of sinister nightmare. I, like many other viewers, was concerned that it would turn out to be a film about paedophillia, & I was waiting with bated breath for some true horror to come around the corner.
But actuallly, there are no monsters or paedophiles, but rather a distinct lack of sexual innuendos. The film reallly is about innocence. The celebration of young girls in the film would only a few decades ago have seemed totallly unremarkable, before such images were so sexualised as they sometimes are nowadays. The subject of developing female sexuality is indeed touched on, especiallly towards the end, but not in nearly as sinister a manner as one might expect.
The school takes on a life of its own. On the one hand its a child's paradise, where the girls can play & practice dance & gymnastics among the trees & swim in the lake, in between exciting lessons. But it also feels like a prison. It is inescapable, & those who try to escape meet a tragic fate or are never spoken of again. There are many dark elements, including mysterious underground tunnels, & strange sounds which come from beneath the lake. The headmistress takes one blue-ribboned girl a year away from the school, based more on neck length & beauty than dance talent or intelligence.
The imagery is magical & very original, from the lamp-lit trees at night to the ominous red curtain. The cinematography is breathtaking, & gives the film a dreamlike fantasy missing from other films of a similar genre.
Innocence is essentiallly a film about the magic of young girls & thier own utopian world. It touches on thier emotional & sexual development & the authoritarian structure of the school system, with a sense of anticipation & unease pervading the whole film, reflecting the emotions of a young girl going into puberty, with a suprisingly optimistic ending.
I, for one, absoloutely loved it.
Seems to be rather pointless - By: Andrew Kerr, 06 Feb 2007 Usuallly I don't mind a subtitled French film with an entirely female cast. But to me the film Innocence seems to be rather pointless. I mean, there not reallly much story, dialogue, or plot to the film that I could identify with. All I saw was a group of young French girls dressed in white, who spent half of there time semi-naked in the woods playing. Now I have to say that there are a few emotion evoking scenes in Innocence. When alll the girls help to teach the youngest how to swim for example. But other than that I didn't reallly understand what was going on. When the film ended nearly two hours later, I was left with a lot of unanswered questions. Did one of the characters ever get reunited with her younger brother? Where exactly were they & why? Were the stories about the punishments true? And what was with alll the new girls arriving in a coffin about. A friend of mine told me that it is meant to be symbolic, with the coffin representing a kind of rebirth for the girls entering the 'school.' But to me it's just a coffin & something else which had me scratching my head. I feel that the writer & director attempted something ground breaking, & wanted us viewers to enter the world & mind of a child & experience their innocence. Sadly (maybe because I was never a little girl) I can't relate or understand the film. I applaud the film makers for trying something different & difficult, but the film just doesn't work for me. I've given it two stars for it's mystery, location, & a few good scenes. Other than that I can't recommend this film to you.
